#i think ive spent too much time on coding recently

[madbug]

asking for a friend (who is me) is there an easy way to embed emojis/unicode characters into AO3 and if so can someone explain it to me? Is it just html? 

#ao3 #writing advice #pls help #i should know what im doing #im literally a cs major #its probably just html isnt it #im not saying im writing another fic but i might be writing another fic #madbug on ao3 #i bet if i looked into it i could figure it out #i wish i could write in python #which makes no sense #because thats a programming language and why the fuck would i write in it #but literally anytime i type anything my brain auto-corrects me to type #print(thing) #i think ive spent too much time on coding recently #this may or may not be for a chatfic #ik ik i said i would never do a chatfic #but like the possibilities

[dr3amofagame]

uhhhh ,, , hi ??

i feel bad bc i havent been here in. LITERALLY forever lmao - hope you guys r all doing good!! ive been working on some stuff but it’s been pretty slow going, and school is also A Thing, so i definitely havent been writing as much as i’d like. 

as an apology, have this? really self-indulgent feel-good syndicate + c!dream centric oneshot bc i felt like writing this so u know. why not. 

tws: implied torture, abuse, self-harm, disordered eating, starvation mentions, prison arc themes - overall everything’s just blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions, not too much angst here for once! c!sam and c!quackity critical, sorry guys but we r still in the prison arc and they still r on their “fuck human rights” arcs. 

Dream leaves.

 It’s a surprise - or maybe it isn’t one, Niki isn’t quite sure. She’d never grown to quite trust the man, she knows, and she can’t really tell if the bitter twist of emotion that swells up her chest when Phil comes to her city with the news is betrayal or resignation - what can she say. She’s gotten more than her fair share of broken promises. They don’t exactly faze her anymore. 

 None of them seem all that surprised, save Techno, who entirely fails to hide the worry that flickers over his face when he calls the Syndicate meeting to officially inform them of what’s going on. She shares quick, careful glances with the other members when his back is turned - despite how many times he’s been burned, Techno still seems so adamant at holding onto every thread, trusting all too easily those who would use and leave him behind without a second glance. He can handle himself, she knows. Still, that’s not going to stop her from slapping Dream upside the head for being yet another worthless person to betray her friend’s forgiving nature. 

 Nothing much changes in the next few weeks. Niki has to admit, it’s strange without Dream around - he’d not been an ally, much less a friend before dipping completely, but he had been some sort of constant - and Niki is self aware enough to know that she misses him, a little, the same sort of way you might miss an old routine once it’s gone, if only for the familiarity. She still visits Techno and Phil with various baked goods, knowing that Phil would have his hands full just keeping Techno from running himself ragged - makes sure to check on Ranboo, whose nerves have inevitably returned with Dream’s disappearance. To be honest, she doesn’t worry as much as he does - ally or not, she’s spent enough time with the Dream that had left prison to expect that he won’t exactly be able to get himself very far should he come for the four of them, and doesn’t particularly care about he might pull with the rest of the server - if things get bad, she’s sure Phil and Techno will have it handled. She asks Phil, once, what happened, and he shrugs. 

 “I don’t know, mate,” he heaves a chest to the side, pulling out a stack of stone blocks that Niki gladly holds for him. “One day we woke up and he was just- gone. Everything. Was like he wasn’t ever there at all.” 

 Niki hums. “Why’d you think he’d do something like that?” 

 “If I could understand half of why Dream does what he does, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He smiles at her from behind a crate. “Shall we bring these things upstairs and start on dinner?” 

 Niki laughs, knowing that the conversation about Dream is over. “Of course, Phil.” 

Dinner is a welcome distraction; all of them have gotten better at cooking in recent months, between her baking and the veritable library of recipes Phil knows that she’s never even heard of, but Phil is still the only one she really trusts to hold his own behind the stove - Ranboo is still a little too nervous around water, and fire, and much of everything, and though Techno can be a perfectly capable cook, he’s been distracted as of late. She has a strong feeling that left to his own devices, he’d just grab a stack of steak and disappear for another few weeks, searching the server for information. 

 Honestly, she’s a little thrown off by his behavior - he’d not done anything like this with Tommy, if she remembers right, and had hardly seemed affected by Wilbur’s betrayal on the Sixteenth at all (then again, she was a little too lost in her own head to notice if he was.) She tosses her head over to ask Phil, who’s leaning over a few carrots he’s slicing to throw into the stew he’s making, and the man pauses, frowns. 

 “From what I know,” he starts, words slow, careful, “they’d spent three months in there together, and the conditions weren’t exactly- stellar. According to what Techno said, I’d assumed they had come to some sort of understanding.” He goes back to the carrots, expression dipping into shadow and out of sight. “Guess I was wrong.” 

 Niki hums. She can see it, sort of - spending months together with someone, no matter how insufferable, probably would end with some degree of attachment - she thinks back to plotting through sleepless nights with Jack, anger and grief leaving them simmering, crabs in the same pot of boiling water, remembers looking into his dead-eyed gaze and seeing her own stare back - and feels a brief pang of guilt. Besides, Techno is Techno. She’d never met someone so willing to forgive, understand, reach out despite everything that’s happened - for Dream to take advantage of that feels almost too obvious. Of course he would - what were they all thinking?

 “He’s Dream,” she says as if that explains everything, flipping open the oven door and feeling a wave of heat blast her face. Phil hums lowly, understanding. “I hope Techno will be alright.” 

 “He’s tough,” Phil cracks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “And he has us on his side. He’ll get through.” 

 Niki opens her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the front door slamming open. Outside their quaint little cottage, the wind howls - it sounds like the beginning of a blizzard out there, flurries painting the world in a thick blanket of white. In the door, Techno strides into the entrance with loud, decisive movements, shutting the door loud enough to make the walls shake. Inadvertently, Niki finds her eyes drawn to the small pile of snow that he’s tracked into the house - Techno’s usually so careful to kick it all off on the porch, never liked it much when there was a pile of melting ice and snow dampening the floorboards and soaking into his shoes. He huffs harshly, stripping off a snow-dusted scarf from his face - a long, multicolored abomination that had been the product of her attempting to teach Ranboo how to knit. Phil has reached his side, hands splayed over his upper arms, eyes soft in the corners from concern. 

 “Techno, mate-” his tone is chiding but his movements gentle as he brushes snow off of Techno’s signature cloak, “you’ve gotten snow everywhere. What were you doing, dueling a blizzard?” 

 Techno shakes his head, not meeting Phil’s banter as usual, fur sticking up from the snow melted into it. His voice is gruff and holds little humor - unconsciously, Niki feels her shoulders tense. 

 “Phil, call a Syndicate meeting.”

 ---

 Phil, per usual, is unrelenting, so it’s not until a quick dinner and some hurried messages to their final member later that the Syndicate is gathered in their meeting room, Techno pacing the length of the room as they wait in their respective seats. He looks less frazzled than he did when he first entered the house, in part due to Phil’s sitting him down to eat and picking through his fur to smooth it out of its windblown spikes and tangles - Techno had grumbled at him to stop preening him, but looked a lot more relaxed by the time they were all finished with their food. Still, his ear flicks periodically, twitching toward ssome sound that Niki can’t hear, movements tighter and jerkier than she is used to. He’d always been a little flightier after the prison, but not quite like this - everything here feels like that but dialed up to eleven. Inexplicably, it reminds her of Dream. 

 “Techno?” Phil gestures towards his seat, prompting, and he settles into it with an obliging huff. 

 “Y’know, Phil, the code names are kinda pointless if we never use ‘em,” he says, words carrying no real heat - he looks back at the rest of them, lips thinning into a line. “Anyway. I called this meeting because I found a couple leads on Dream.” 

 “O-oh,” Ranboo stutters, tail lashing behind him. 

 “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, mate,” Phil reminds him gently, a sentiment that Niki affirms with a determined nod. 

 “There’ve been some reports- rumors, really,” Techno says, calling their attention again, and they all turn towards him, “of increased activity around the prison again. The Warden spending more time on its grounds, movement seen around the walls and around the portal- so I decided to go check it out for myself.” 

 Niki frowns, and watches as Phil does the same beside her - Techno had seemed to avoid the prison if he could help it, save for when he went on the initial mission to break Dream out. It was no secret to them that he didn’t exactly like the place. 

 “We could’ve helped if you asked,” Phil reminds him, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “I know, Phil. It’s just- that place is bad news. I’d rather keep you guys away from there if I can-” his hand goes to his head with a poorly hidden wince. “Sorry, Chat’s a little- worked up, at the minute.” 

 “Sorry, we’ll stop interrupting you,” Niki says, cutting off Phil before he says anything else. “So you went to the prison?” 

 Techno takes a second to gather his thoughts, mumbling quietly in the way that usually means he’s telling off Chat. “Right- I decided to stake out the portal. The rumors were right- Sam has been hanging around there, entered and left the prison four times yesterday. And today-” he hesitates, expression visibly darkening. “This morning, about an hour after the Warden arrived, Quackity came to the prison and went through the portal. He left the grounds about six hours later.” 

 “Quackity?” Niki frowns, eyes flicking over to how Phil has stilled in his seat. “What is Quackity doing at the prison?” 

 Phil ignores her question, reaching towards Techno, something indiscernible in his gaze. “Mate…”

 “He smelled of blood when he left,” Techno says, words sharp, and Niki feels her heart skip a beat. “Warden left about half an hour after, and I came back here.” 

 Ranboo clears his throat, sounding tentative. “Okay,” he drums his hand on the table when they turn towards him, eyebrows drawn, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with, uh, Dream?” 

 Techno and Phil trade glances, one of their bouts of unspoken conversation that Niki’s grown extremely used to. They seem strangely hesitant, she notes internally, Phil looking towards Techno with a question written clearly in the planes of his face. Techno sighs, a long puff of air through his lips as he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the table. 

 “You know how Dream was- injured,” he starts slowly, looking back up at them. Niki shifts uncomfortably - of course she noticed, it was impossible not to - if not the bandages that peeked under his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants, then how skinny he’d been, all skin and bones curled up uncomfortably in a pile at the corner of Techno’s couch. She’d not know the extent, by any means, and had always assumed that they’d been self-inflicted - she’d been in a bad enough place on her own before to know how your head can make you want to hurt, sometimes, how eating food can feel like choking on sawdust and the world could feel so much smaller when focused into delicate pricks of pain. Phil’s eyes are trained on Techno - on his face, then on the pinkish raised skin of a still-healing scar along his forearm, and she feels understanding settle like a rock in her gut. 

 “The Warden had apparently been lettin’ Quackity into the cell to torture Dream for the revive book,” Techno trails off, eyes narrowed and seemingly fixed on a random point of the opposite wall. “By the time I go there, it’d been goin’ on for months.”

 “But wait,” Ranboo’s tail moves even more erratically behind him, “You mean you think he’s back- there? How?” 

 “He has to be back in the prison,” Techno points out. “I can’t imagine anyone besides him that the two of them are goin’ to just start torturin’- Sam had been iffy about the whole thing when Quackity started in on me. It has to be Dream in there again.” 

 “But how did he get in there, then?” Ranboo asks, visibly confused. “Last time it took the entire server to lock him up!”

 “There were no signs of a struggle,” Niki points out, matter of fact. “I believe you, Techno, but I don’t really know how they managed to drag him back so easily. I can’t imagine he was jumping at the chance to go back in there.” 

 Techno shakes his head with an uneasy sigh. 

 “I have a feelin’ of what might’ve happened,” he says quietly. “And I really hope that I’m wrong and he’s less of an idiot than I think he is.” 

 ---

 They set out to investigate - and maybe attack - the next day, Techno and Phil taking on the bulk of preparations as Ranboo stays behind. He’d been understandably uneasy about the whole mission, so they’d left him back by the Syndicate room to set off their pearls in case anything went wrong. (“By the end of the day,” Techno had said, giving Phil a look with the corner of his lip quirked upwards, “don’t be like Phil here and think I meant the end of the month, alright?”) They’d all be supplied with armor and weapons, thanks to Phil, but she’d been handed the bulk of their potions, arranged neatly in her inventory by type in case they’d be needed. She lingers in the back of the room as Phil and Techno chat amiably over the sound of making last minute repairs on their armor, listens to Techno’s ceaseless reminders for Phil to be careful, watches as they make sure that their stasis chambers are properly prepared should they need them.

 (She watches as Phil nudges Techno’s shoulder when he lingers behind a certain chair, empty as long as she’s been part of the Syndicate, the fountain behind it bubbling quietly without a pearl inside. Techno sighs, expression strange. 

 “Should’ve set him up with one,” he says, quiet, and Phil pats him on the back. 

 “You couldn’t have known, mate. We wanted to wait a little before telling him about the Syndicate, remember?” 

 Techno hums, noncommittal. “Still.”)

 They Nether travel to the site of Techno’s lookout, which ends up being a little shambling thing with dirt walls dug into a small hill looking towards the prison portal, having hardly enough space to fit the three of them. Phil looks at it with no small amount of apprehension, and Techno shrugs lightly, wearing an expression that makes Phil turn to him with a look that makes Niki break into giggles. Techno crosses his arms- “in my defense-” and Phil looks up at the dirt ceiling with a long-suffering sigh. 

 “You couldn’t have made this a little roomier, mate?” Phil asks, voice dry as kindling, and Techno raises his hands by his head. 

 “Hey hey, it’s discreet, it gets the job done, it’s perfectly structurally sound-” the sound of the leftmost wall crumbling, along with the cloud of dust that puffs from it and fills their tiny space, undermines the tail end of his statement and leaves him sputtering, Niki falling into another fit of quiet giggles. Underneath it all, Phil sighs again, raising his wings behind him. 

 “...these are going to take so long to clean out.” 

 To his credit, Techno looks sheepish. “Sorry, Phil.”

 They sober up quickly; Techno turns around to the opposite side of the hill, where he’s hidden some peepholes inside the dirt - Niki settles herself by one, leaning forwards to put her eye to it and catch a glimpse of the prison looming over the water. It’s been repaired since the breakout, she notes, the gaping hole in the roof completely gone and replaced with obsidian, as intimidating and undamaged as it had been before, if not more so. Phil makes a considering sound from behind her.

 “Same plan as last time?” He asks, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “They’ve probably reinforced it, and Dream’s blueprints won’t include anything new the Warden’s added. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved Dream to a different location completely. We don’t want to draw too much attention, either, we were cutting it pretty close during the breakout.” He narrows his eyes. “I was thinking we’d try something a little stealthier, this time. “ 

 He gestures at Niki, who blinks back at him with wide eyes. 

 “You got a couple of invis potions for us?”

 She distributes the potions among them all, one regular and two splash potions of invisibility each, and Techno points towards the prison once she’s done. 

 “The most important thing is to get through the portal,” he says with a grim expression. “Worst comes to worst, once we’re inside we can always blast our way through - but gettin’ through that portal is our first priority.” 

 Phil narrows his eyes at him. “The portal is locked, though. We’ll need to follow someone else inside- and I’m pretty sure Sam uses pearls, so he’s out.” 

 Techno nods. “Which is why I’m bankin’ on the prison gettin’ another visitor today. We’ll just have to wait.” 

 Niki swallows. “Do you mean-”

 “Quackity?” Techno turns away, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m not totally sure, but he’s not exactly the type to just give up on his goals. He’s pretty predictable- an empire needs an emperor, always needs something new to rule- you know the type,” he says, tipping his head towards Phil. “He’ll be mad at Dream for disappearin’ on him and won’t miss the opportunity to prove he has the upper hand again. I’m not sure that he’s going to come today-”

 “-but you wouldn’t really be surprised, either,” Phil finishes for him, eyes steely with cold determination. “I trust your judgement, mate. Just stay safe- from what I’ve heard, Quackity has been...erratic.” 

 “When is he not,” Techno huffs a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine, Phil. Just be careful, both of you. Don’t get too close. And if things get messy- which is what we’re tryin’ to avoid, by the way- then don’t do anything too risky. Our priority is gettin’ in and out alive.” 

 “We can handle ourselves, Techno,” Niki reminds him with a small smile. “And Ranboo is there in case anything goes wrong.” 

 “Alright, then. Here’s the plan.” 

 ---

 It takes quite a long time for Quackity to arrive, long minutes that Niki spends fidgeting in the corner of the room, brushing her hands over seams of the netherite plates that Phil had shoved into her hands, back at the Syndicate room. The set is inexplicably light - not weightless, by any means, as it is still netherite, but not nearly as bulky as any set of netherite armor she’s owned or seen in the past. The runes are precise, lines thin and exact, written with graceful strokes of lapis. 

 “Phil’s the best metalworker I’ve ever met,” Techno tells her with a small grin, catching her in the middle of tracing what she can make out as an Unbreaking rune along the metal strapped to her forearm. “But then again, he’s had the time to practice.” 

 “Are you calling me old again?” Phil huffs, and Techno flashes a smile her direction before looking at Phil with a slight grin. 

 “Well, Chat is,” he says, lips twitching when Phil glares back. 

 “You can’t just blame Chat every time you insult me, you little shit,” Phil groans, and Techno only grins wider. 

 “Phil, my ad revenue,” he complains, a dramatic lilt to his voice that has Niki stifling a snort, and Phil’s glare only grows deadlier. 

 “You’ll have more than your ad revenue to worry about if you keep this up,” he mumbles, going back to keep watch at one of the peepholes and stilling as he does. “Shit- Techno, Quackity’s here.” 

 Techno straightens up, hindered slightly by the low ceiling of their room. “Alright- we all know the plan, right?” 

 Niki nods in the affirmative, pulling out a splash invis and letting it settle in her hand, the glass cool beneath her fingertips. She reaches into her inventory and lets her armor fade into it, takes a deep breath and watches as the two across from her do the same. She doesn’t wear armor often, but so close to the prison, feeling mining fatigue settling deep into her bones - she’s never missed the security it offers more. Techno keeps watch, waiting- drops his arm in a signal. Now. 

 Niki throws the potion at their feet, flinching back at the sound of shattering glass and feeling its effects seep into her skin. When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything but the inside of the room that they’d holed themselves in and the faintest of wisps rising from where their feet must be, curling around the grass. 

 (Please let this work, she begs to no one in particular as they walk towards the prison. And if you can hear me- please keep us all safe.)

 She hardly breathes as they follow Quackity across the path, holding someone’s hand in her own - Phil’s, by the feel of it - careful to muffle her footsteps in the grass and stand still whenever Quackity’s eyes come a little too close. Thankfully for them, he seems focused, hardly stopping or looking around at all as he walks towards the prison’s portal, movements stiff as he walks forward. He punches the button on the wall particularly harshly, and Sam’s voice comes crackling through a speaker a second later. 

 “I’m here for my visit,” Quackity says, punctuating the sentence with a snort of laughter that doesn’t sound particularly sincere. Niki hasn’t seen him in a long while, not after everything that happened in Pogtopia, and she feels a chill worm down her spine - this man looks nothing like the one that had laughed and danced and sung at her birthday party what feels like an eternity ago. What happened? 

 Sam sighs, the sound turning into a sharp burst of static through the speakers. “Hello Quackity,” he says, voice deep and tired. “Please step into the portal after I tell you to and then wait on the other side.” 

 “I know the drill, Sam,” Quackity rolls his eyes. “Just because the bastard was gone for a few weeks doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how this damn place works.” 

 “Just going through protocol, Quackity,” Sam replies, and something about this response has Quackity exploding into a brief fit of laughter, the sound grating against Niki’s ears. She feels her grip tighten on Phil’s hand, air caught in her throat. 

 “Protocol- ha. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal.” Quackity smiles, cold and cruel, and Niki tries not to think about how she’d seen that same grin on Wilbur, eyes sparkling from the light of the lanterns hung from the bridges and walls of their ravine, remember how she’d looked into them and realized her old friend wasn’t there, anymore. Quackity disappears into the portal, and after a second, the hand around her own pulls her inside of it too.

 On the other side, Quackity taps his foot impatiently, crossing his arms and waiting- Sam’s voice comes through the speakers again, words clipped. 

 “Go through the portal,” he says, and Quackity does- once again, they wait for a second for his body to disappear, then go within it themselves, pressed close enough together within its frame for Niki to feel the warmth of a wing wrap around her shoulders for a quick second before they’re out of the hot, stifling air of the Nether and into a large, neatly made lobby of blackstone and quartz. They duck into a corner, watching as Quackity moves towards the front counter, the Warden waiting there with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks- tired. His movements are slow, footsteps loud against the floor, shoulders tense and back hunched. He walks around the counter, sword strapped to his belt, and Niki feels her breath hitch at the sight of dried blood still stuck to the blade in patches and splatters.

 “He ready?” Quackity asks, holding his hands out - Niki catches a flash of metal as Sam drops something into them, watches as Quackity raises what ends up being a pair of shears, dangerous-looking and gleaming with enchants, to the light. 

 “Yes,” Sam says, side-eyeing Quackity with a small glare. “You know, it’s supposed to be your job to clean those things off when you’re done with them.”

 “I told you, busy day back in Las Nevadas yesterday,” Quackity waves a hand- “I’ll do it, alright? Don’t get all pissy now. What happened to being partners?” 

 “You said we’d be done with this months ago, Quackity,” Sam sighs, and Niki feels a light tug on her arm as Quackity and Sam begin to walk towards the wall to the right of them, breathes in slow and deep as she follows Techno and Phil towards the others. The wall yawns open with the hiss of redstone firing and pistons pulling blocks upwards, opening into a dark hallway that feels like entering the maw of some sort of giant, insatiable beast. They step inside as one, and the door shuts behind them. 

 “We’ll be done soon enough,” Quackity says, and Niki feels hairs rising on the back of her neck. “Trust me.” 

 They stalk forwards through a labyrinth of blackstone, Niki brushing the palms of her hand against her clothes when it goes clammy from adrenaline. Halfway through, she pauses to tip back a second potion of invisibility, careful to keep her movements slow and steady as not to make a sound - the liquid is silvery, cool and light on her tongue, and she lets the effects wash over her with her breath caught in her lungs before moving forward. The tunnels are simpler than she’d expected, bearing little obstacles or checkpoints - Quackity makes a wry comment a second after (“Guard tunnels today, huh? Appreciate the hustle, pal-”) that confirms her suspicions. Despite the potion particles still whirling around their bodies and the sounds of their footsteps, too loud in her own ears, they manage to make it forwards without much trouble, entering a large room with a doorway filled completely with a curtain of lava. 

 “Set your spawn,” Sam says, still stoic, and Quackity rolls his eyes again before doing as told. Niki keeps looking back at the lava flowing past the wall, its heat filling the room and making her already slick palms even worse, and Sam moves to the side to flick a lever, eyes trained on the lava slowly bubbling in front of him. 

 “Give me your tools?” Quackity asks, and Sam sighs before doing so - Niki watches as he hands over a netherite axe, then potions, then a few raw potatoes that Quackity accepts and puts into his inventory. Sam raises an eyebrow once he’s done, hand tight around the handle of his trident. 

 “You bring your own sword, today?” He asks, seeming irritated, and Quackity shrugs. 

 “Sorry pal, I need to make a new one. Guess I’m borrowing yours again.” 

 Sam sighs again, louder, and hands over his sword as well, watching as Quackity swings it a few times experimentally. The blade skims a little too close to her on one swing and she can’t quite help the squeak that escapes her lips as she throws herself out of the way, feels her heart hammer in her ears as she backs up against the wall. Please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that-

 “Quackity, wait.” Sam raises a hand, ear twitching as he looks over in her direction with narrowed eyes. “I think I heard something.”

 Oh fuck.

 “Well, guess show’s up then,” Techno drawls, and both of them whirl towards his voice, giving Niki enough time to pull her armor back on, scrambling to get her sword and shield in her hands as Phil does the same besides her. Pieces of armor appear where Techno is standing, then a bucket of milk- oh, why must her friends be so dramatic- and Techno’s standing there, smiling sharply, with Orphan Obliterator held loosely at his side. “Let’s get this done, then.” 

 As one, Techno and Phil blur into action - Techno moves forward to catch the prongs of Sam’s trident on his blade as Phil parries Quackity’s blows with his own sword- they move fluidly, easily covering each other’s backs as the room devolves into chaos. Niki remembers their guidance as she flits in and out of the fight, scoring quick hits to keep the Warden and Quackity off balance while remaining out of range from their weapons, and it’s not long before both of them have fallen with a spray of items and experience orbs scattered all over the floor. 

 Techno moves over to block off the exposed face of the bed with a block, looking over at the two of them with an uncharacteristically severe expression. “They’ll be back soon- we have to move fast. Niki, you have those fire res, right?” 

 She nods as she reaches into her inventory, finding the potion’s orange-pink glow and smashing it at their feet. They dive into the lava together, Niki scrambling to keep up, her arms struggling to move through the thick lava, loses sight of both until she flails into something directly in front of her and hands are pulling her up out of the lava. 

 “There you go, mate,” Phil smiles down at her as hauls herself to her feet, making a face at the feeling of the lava clinging to her clothes. “Yeah, swimming through lava isn’t exactly fun. You good?” She flashes him a thumbs up, and he laughs- “Niki, you’re still invisible.” She flushes pink- right.

 A few sips of milk later, she gives him a proper thumbs up, and he laughs, loud and bright. She looks past him to where Techno’s crouched over something- someone, she realizes with a start, in the corner. Dream’s back in prison clothes, ragged and ill-fitting, and he’s curled up with his back towards the front of the cell, shaking enough to be obvious even from where she’s standing. Techno speaks lowly, voice barely more than a deep rumble in the air, almost inaudible.

 “You there, Dream?” 

 She watches as Dream turns his head, looking up with wide, bleary eyes. His hair flops in front of his face, and something within her itches to brush it out of the way. “T-Techno?”

 “Yeah nerd, who else?” Techno smiles, and Dream seems to blink awake, drawing himself up with a shuddery breath. 

 “Techno- it’s a trap- what are you doing here?” he hisses, and Techno gives him a look, deadpan.

 “Yeah, yeah, it’s a trap- come on, Dream, we’ve been over this by now, bro. You have to know that their traps aren’t goin’ to do anything to me by now,” Techno rolls his eyes, reaching forward to steady his hands on Dream’s shoulders when the other man sputters and struggles to breathe. “Easy, now. Geez, you wanted to prove me wrong about being homeless bad enough that you came back here? We could’ve just made you a house, you know. You didn’t have to go this far.” 

 “I- they were gonna kill you,” Dream breathes, face twisted up uncomfortably, and his eyes flick past Techno’s face to where Phil and Niki are standing at the opposite wall of the cell. “All of you- they said-”

 “And that’s what I thought you’d say,” Techno groans. “Come on, you idiot, I thought you were smarter than this-” 

 “They were right there, Techno!” Dream fires back, eyes alight. “You- they were right there, what were you thinking, they could’ve-!”

 “And my best friend is a necromancer, remember?” Techno shakes his head. “Come on, Dream- Sam and Quackity? You know we can handle them in a fight, especially when you can just revive us if anything goes wrong. You don’t have to do this whole self-sacrifice thing, bro- there’s only so many times I can break into the same prison, y’know.” 

 “You’re so stupid,” Dream huffs, but he leans in anyway, head just barely settling against Techno’s shoulder. “I- I can’t believe. You’re so dumb.” 

 “Hey, don’t be sayin’ that to the guy that’s breakin’ you out of prison,” Techno laughs, slinging Dream over his shoulder with an easy motion and laughing harder when it makes him yelp. “That’s just bein’ ungrateful. You’re making Chat sad, man, and when they’re sad they don’t subscribe-” 

 “I regret this entirely,” Dream says, voice muffled against Techno’s shirt, tone completely flat. “Put me down- you idiot- I’m staying here. You’re worse than Quackity.” 

 “Rude. Now you’ve really made Chat mad. I demand an apology-” 

 “Boys, boys.” Niki can’t help giggling, watching the way their gazes snap towards her, rolling her eyes as she moves forward with a few potions held loosely in her hand. “Dream, do you want a health pot?” 

 Dream seems to deliberate for a second, before nodding at her, expression slightly strained. “...sure.” 

 “You two can finish your argument after we’ve broken out of the biggest maximum security prison on the server,” Phil drawls from behind her, arms crossed at his chest. “Come on, now, before Sam gets back.” 

 “Isn’t this the only maximum security prison on the server?” Techno asks aloud, an amused expression on his face - one that only gets worse when Phil glares at him with one ice-blue eye. 

 “Shut-” he sighs, shaking his head. “You two are chaotic little shits, you know that?”

 “Don’t compare me to him, Phil,” Techno complains, Dream mirroring his words with muffled protests of his own, and Phil breathes another drawn-out, long-suffering sigh as he rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

 “Niki, give us some fire res please?” 

 She finds the potion bottle between giggles, throwing it to the ground as she tries to choke down the laughter rapidly bubbling up her throat. “Of course, Phil.” 

 She looks back at Techno and Dream before jumping into the lava, the two of them once again lost in some sort of argument, Dream draped over Techno’s shoulder. He’s breathing easier now, she notes, and Techno looks looser too - a little less tense, leaning back with a perpetual quirk to the corner of his lip as they fire insults back and forth. This is familiar, she recognizes with a soft twist in her chest, the same way that Phil and Techno can finish each other’s sentences and look at each other with laughing eyes sharing the same memories of the past, the same way Ranboo watches Techno’s every step as he adjusts his stance and lifts his sword and Techno laughs and calls him a main character in turn, the same way she and Phil will settle together on the porch over cups of tea and sit at each other’s sides for hours. The rhythm between them is one well-established, the road well-worn - she imagines them, huddled in this dingy cell for months together, and breathes in slow and deep. 

 “Come on,” she smiles, making sure to keep it on her face when Dream meets her eyes with wide, startled ones of his own. Dream still isn’t an ally, and isn’t a friend. 

 But - she watches as he smiles back, something inexplicably warm in her chest - maybe, one day, he could be.

#tw torture #tw abuse #tw self harm #tw disordered eating #tw ed #tw sh #prison arc #pandora's vault #tw starvation #c!sam critical #c!quackity critical #my writing :D #> my writing

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding IX

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

Part I - - - - - Part II - - - - - Part III - - - - - Part IV  - - - Part V - - - - - Part VI - - - - - Part VII - - - - - Part VIII

Content Warning: This chapter contains potentially triggering material, particularly aftermath of attempted suicide as well as discussions of bodily injury.

Cody woke up the morning after the...drunken keldabe still feeling uneasy. He spent half an hour attempting to read over reports in preparation for the Umbaran campaign before giving it up as a lost cause. He distracted himself for a little while by pouring over last night’s cantina surveillance, before giving up on that as well and sending a message to General Skywalker.

‘Any updates on General Kenobi’s status?’

He watched the comms as communications from everyone besides the General trickled in. He answered a few requests for requisitions, forwarded some medical reports, and ignored an irritating handful of overly-personal questions. 

Agonizing over it the whole time, he opened a comm-text link to Obi-Wan. It took nearly an hour, but he managed to send two sentences. ‘Hope you’re recovering well. Look forward to upcoming mission discussion.’

He immediately wanted to retroactively delete the message, mortified by every word and deeply concerned at every second that passed without a reply.

He spent the next 30 minutes hunched over, quickly closing every incoming CT and CC communication, justifying the time to himself as ‘technically on leave.’

He lurched forward when he finally received a General’s comm code, but slumped in disappointment when it was Skywalker, not Kenobi.

‘Not as drunk but still seems a little high. He says he wasn’t drugged. He’s taking the rest of the day off. I’m monitoring.’

Taking the rest of the day off. Did that mean he wasn’t carrying around his comm? Kriff. Should he more or less concerned that the general was actually taking a day off?

He decided to be more concerned.

‘Thank you for the update. Respectfully request information on any changes.’

Hopefully that would encourage Skywalker to keep him informed even if he stopped freaking out over his vod’s behavior.

Stowing the remote comm, he stood up and exited the temporary planet-side office, throwing himself into cleaning up the mess that was nearly 20,000 clone troopers simultaneously attempting to get the most out of a very brief R&R. 

Shortly before mid-day, he received another update from Skywalker.

‘Just managed to get him to medical. Healer cleared him of drug interactions but Obi-Wan’s still acting strange (not crying, but a lot of hugging).’

Cody stared at that for a long while.

‘Any other verbal indications of upcoming danger?’ he finally asked. Skywalker didn’t reply. 

Shortly after nightfall, his incident reports were interrupted by a call from an unknown temple number. He quickly opened it, and a holo of an unfamiliar Mon Calamari female healer appeared in miniature on the desk.

“Commander Cody. Thank you for answering so quickly. Are you somewhere private?” she asked, voice deliberately neutral.

The Commander tensed up. “Yes, sir. I’m in CC office space, alone. The room and the channel are both secure. Is this regarding General Kenobi?”

“Yes.” She replied. “My name is Master Bant Eerin; I’m a temple healer as well as a personal friend of Obi-Wan’s. He’s...he’s in the healing halls right now. We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened- I’ll tell you what I can but first we need to rule out any possible drugs he may have contact with. I need you to describe in detail anything he may have been exposed to that could have possibly had mind-altering effects.”

The Commander was a professional. He swallowed back his fear, his questions, and his demands to know what was going on.

“Of course. Everything on the Negotiator was GAR Standard, and I was with him when we left the ship. We went directly to the lower levels. The first time he was exposed to anyone outside the 212th was when we left our transport on level 3915. I...actually have footage of him the whole time night after that point. I’m sending it over right now, sir.”

“That would be extremely helpful, thank you.” He watched as she pulled it up on a second comm, sound barely audible. 

He continued with his report: “One of the boys took it without permission. He didn’t mean anything by it, he’s just an idiot; I’ve already issued a severe reprimand. In any case, he brought it to me after I issued surveillance on the cantina, it tracks everything the General did- as far as I can tell, he had a glass of house grub wine, two shots of rancor blood, and an unnamed mixed cocktail ‘on the house.’ You can see everything the bartender added- as far as I can tell nothing was slipped in. He just... blacked out suddenly after the fourth drink, and quickly startled awake, confused by his surroundings.”

“I see.” Her tone was still carefully neutral and Cody didn’t know how to read her expression. He waited, wishing he was wearing his bucket so he didn’t have to keep schooling his face into professional patience.

“You brought him back to the temple...correct?” 

“Yes, sir.”

She let out a deep breath, gills fluttering slightly. “We’ll probably have more questions later, but please understand our inquires are entirely based around determining how we can best help Obi-Wan. This call and any future ones are not intended, and should absolutely not be interpreted, as indications of blame. He’s actually spoken to me about you before, I know he has the deepest respect for you, personally and professionally. Someone will likely be assigned to talk to everyone whose spent time with him recently, including myself.”

The sick feeling in his gut from last night returned full force. “I...believe I understand sir. His condition is serious, then?”

Her gills fluttered again.

“Even now, I think we can safely anticipate a full physical recovery. He...there’s no easy way to say this...it appears he attempted to end his own life. Knight Skywalker got to him just in time, and he received bacta within minutes of the initial burn. I...like I said...we’ll began work to figure out why-”

Her voice broke and she stared up, large tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She hastily wiped them away.

“Rest assured commander, he’s getting the best treatment possible. Thank you for your assistance. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have right now. This is my personal comm link- please feel free to reach out to me at any point for updates.”

“I-” Cody cleared his throat. “Can I come to the temple? To...” he trailed off, not sure how to finish.

“Not tonight, I’m sorry. The healers need to focus; he’s not allowed any visitors until he’s out of Bacta, I’m afraid.”

“Skywalker must be throwing a fit at that” Cody remarked numbly.

The healer winced. “Knight Skywalker is currently sedated. He was...injured in the struggle to keep Obi-Wan from further harm. Master Windu witnessed part of it, but we’ll have to wait until its safe to wake him to get the full story. I’ll be notifying Captain Rex of the situation after we finish speaking.”

“I’ll do it.” Cody offered immediately. “Tell me what happened.”

Eerin hesitated. 

“Please, Sir. It will be better coming from me and...if he’s the only other trooper who’s being informed at the moment...”

“Of course,” she said quietly. “We don’t know the full circumstances, but at some point in performing emergency care for Master Kenobi, Knight Skywalker was stabbed in the lower abdomen with a vibroblade. It pierced his large intestine. The blade was pulled out shortly before healers arrived, causing some further damage and blood loss. He’s already finished surgery, and should only need a few hours of Bacta at most. Considering his extraordinary past recovery rates, he’ll likely be out of bed tomorrow and fully healed by the end of the week.”

“General Kenobi wouldn’t...” Cody trailed off again. He was having a hard time putting coherent sentences together.

Bant looked at the ceiling for a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts.

“Psychosis can have many manifestations. Even with- with conventional injuries, people can mistake help for harm. There’s just too much we don’t understand, and only so much we can learn before they wake up. Are you certain you wish to be the one to inform Captain Rex?”

“Yes.” That was about the only thing the Commander was certain of right now. “Is there anyone else in the GAR I should inform of...anything?”

“The military aspect of this isn’t my area of expertise. If there’s someone you trust who can be a support for you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to tell them in confidence. Some form of what happened is going to get out eventually.” she replied. “Please use your discretion, I suppose. It’s...not really my speciality but I imagine you’ll receive further orders on how much to release to the GAR once Obi-Wan’s stable.”

Right. Discretion. Because Obi-Wan wasn’t just Obi-Wan- he was a high general in charge of nearly 1/3 of the republic’s forces. If word of this got out to the wrong ears it would cause mass panic, maybe even an emboldened separatist advance. It was an insane amount of responsibility for one person, no wonder - he deliberately didn’t finish the thought.

“I’ll comm the Captain immediately. Thank you for the information, General.” he said out loud.

“Feel free to contact me for further updates, and tell Captain Rex he’s welcome to do the same. I’ll message you when its clear to visit the halls.”

“Yes, Sir.” Cody responded, saluting automatically. 

“Take care of yourself, Commander Cody”

The hologram blinked out. Cody sat motionless for several long moment before sweeping his desk off, sending the assorted flimsies and redundant comm-units of various designations to the ground.

He stared at the empty desk, then tapped a button on his wrist comm, opening a private audio channel. “CT-7567, please come in” he said calmly.

“Cody?” came the alarmed reply. “I’m here, what’s going on?” Why did he sound so panicked? He had deliberately used his calmest voice. Oh well.

“Please report immediately to CC Office 12 in Guard Headquarters”

“I’ll be there in 10″

Cody hung up. He stared at the blank wall. He knew something was wrong with how the General said goodbye.

He opened the single desk drawer and dumped the odd wires and coins inside to the floor. Eerin had said burn. That could mean a lot of things, but lightsaber was the most likely. 

Cody puked profusely into the empty drawer. He stared at the vomit for a moment before carefully closing the drawer. He still felt a little sick. He hadn’t even said anything back to the General, he just stood there, frozen. 

He stared vaguely at the wall across, wondering if he was going to puke again.

Rex burst into the room. “Cody! What’s going on?! You- kark, what is that smell?”

“I puked in the desk drawer” Cody explained.

Rex shut the door behind him and slowly walked over. He knelt down next to the desk, gently taking Cody’s hands in this own. “Cody. Vod. Talk to to me.” 

“Obi-Wan tried to kill himself.”

Rex’s hands tightened over Cody’s compulsively and Cody squeezed back harder. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Rex’s expression.

“Some of ghost company went out for drinks last night. Obi-Wan started acted oddly. We flew towards the temple. He started crying. We got to the temple. He Keldabe kissed me. He told me goodbye. I didn’t say anything back.”

“Oh, vod” Rex whispered. He gently pulled the slack Cody off the chair and onto his lap on the floor. Cody continued mechanically. “I did reports today. Skywalker said he was with him. I left Obi-Wan a message. I don’t think he saw it. He tried to kill himself. Skywalker must have left him alone. He saved him. Obi-Wan stabbed Skywalker.”

Rex froze, still holding on to Cody. 

“The healer called. Asked about drugs. They don’t think its drugs but they had to ask. She said they’re both going to heal completely fine. I have a link if you want to call the healer directly. That’s...it. I have reports to do now.”

Rex held Cody tighter. “Not right now”

“It’s war. People get hurt. People die. I have work to do”

“Not right now,” Rex repeated. “You have the right to be upset. You have the right to grieve. You’re a person, of course you have feelings.”

“Obi-Wan said that.” Cody whispered. Then he started crying. He continued to quietly sob for some time, hurt and bewildered and scared. They sat on the floor together; Rex barely moved, simply held on to his older brother as he fell apart.

Inevitably, Cody’s tears dried up and he pulled away. 

“I don’t know how to clean this,” he said gesturing at that closed drawer. 

“I’ll take care of it. Let’s just get you to bed. There’s CC bunks here, right? 

“Yes but...”

Cody didn’t really like sleeping so isolated, but he also couldn’t imagine facing the 212th right now. 

“I’ll stay here with you. We’ll go to the temple together in the morning.”

Rex shepherded Cody to the fresher. He stared at the mirror with a vague sense of recognition before automatically moving through a standard sanitation routine. By the time he finished, Rex had joined him in his room.

“What did you do with the vomit?” Cody asked, suddenly exhausted. They slipped into bed together.

“Swapped the whole desk with Pond’s. That bastard knows what he did.”

Cody let out a snort. Then, much to his surprise, he sank heavily into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Part X

#star wars #my au #suicidal misunderstanding au #star wars au no 27 #potentially triggering #attempted suicide #injury #all off screen this chapter #character is not actually suicidal but is severely divorced from reality due to space wizard plot device #starwars #codywan #angst #fanfic

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Your cool literary takes on James Bond made me want to ask you this. I have to wear a tuxedo for a special occasion, can you give me some advice? I would welcome some style pointers from you as I respect your refined taste. What are your thoughts on men wearing the tuxedo? I think it’s a dying tradition because here in the US, where the tux was invented, it has all but disappeared as the choice of evening wear for any social events. Great blog posts but I only wish you would post more.

Thank you for your kind words about my most recent posts on Ian Fleming’s James Bond and also generally liking what I post. I too wish I could post more but unfortunately my time is taken up with the reality of work and other things even during these tough times of the Covid pandemic. But when I get a moment to myself I do enjoy posting as a way to detox from the pressures of work. I appreciate your continued support.

I got this question before Christmas so the thought had occurred to me that you were asking because you had a decision to make over the festive period. If so, I am sorry for tardy lateness of my response. But I trust what little advice I can give will help you in the future. 

I always remember the maxim by the fashion designer, Tom Ford, who said, “Dressing well is a form of good manners.”

To me, for a man to wear black tie (or tuxedo) is the height of good manners. It used to be the case that every gentleman had one and it was perhaps the first suit to pack into a suitcase. Perhaps one of the few times I was ever envious of my older brothers as men was accompanying them with my father the first time they went to get fitted for a bespoke black tie at Henry Poole & Co - the Savile Row tailors that had been the regular choice of my grandfather and father for their clothing attire. Although both siblings later gravitated to other Savile Row bespoke tailors as they got older, that first Henry Poole black tie lasted them for a long time. The whole ritual around taking measurements took on a hushed sacred tone of a liturgy. Looking back it felt like a rite of passage for them as they passed from boyhood to adulthood.

The choice of wearing a tuxedo epitomises the desire - among people of means and social standing - to be fresh, clean and as attractive as possible when meeting on evening social events and attending high spirits affairs. This tradition was maintained also with the beginning of the use of the automobile, when there was no practical justification.

Before the Second World War, tuxedos and tails were still considered the only appropriate clothing for all the elegant social evenings. However, after the war, the traditional suit, or the work suit, began to be accepted more on informal evening and daytime occasions, and so the use of the tuxedo was limited to just formal evening gatherings only.

The tuxedo was completely remade in disco's image by the 1970s. A young, revolutionary generation looked at the conservative styling of the tuxedo and threw out nearly everything, keeping only the vague silhouette. Huge, floppy bow ties, colourful patterned jackets, shirts with ruffles and lace, and trousers that looked more like bell-bottoms became much more prevalent. The typical tuxedo in the '70s usually had at least two of these elements, if not all of them.

By the 1980s, a return to classic styling had thankfully re-emerged and tuxedos started looking more conservative.

By the late 2000s, as dress codes became diluted and misunderstood, formal-wear took another hit. Business-casual was the predominate dress code of the workplace and shiny black suits with matching ties had nearly supplanted traditional black-tie. Coloured dress shirts also began to trend in this era.  Those who continued to wear traditional black-tie made it as simple as possible to match the casual aesthetic that a new generation preferred.

These days I think more and more young men are adopting the black-tie styles of the '30s and '40s. Midnight blue tuxedos have even made a comeback. I think high quality period dramas like "Mad Men" are at least part of the reason for the shift, with men growing nostalgic for a bygone era of neater, more crisp look.  

People forget, as often as they do, that the original purpose of this elegant clothing was to replace the suit worn all day, allowing men to leave behind the dirt and smell of a day spent on horseback, not to bring it around the dining table.

These days the emphasis on informality has made it easier to make excuses for men (and women) to dress down to a street level of casual indifference (laziness) that I find aesthetically displeasing.

Moreover I find it a tad disrespectful to the sense of occasion and also an unkind ingratitude to the efforts made by the host or hostess in organising such an event. For those who think wearing black tie is a sign of social superiority, then respectfully they have not understood its true purpose. In following the dress code, it is in effect a sign of respect towards your fellow guests, as it has been put in place to ensure attendees are on the same level.

The origin of the tuxedo is a controversial subject of conversation in some circles. I know in the US it’s common to assume the tux was invented there but many have pointed out it was in England that its origins lie. Some fashion historians trace it back to the 17th Century as a tailless ‘smoking jacket’. In England during the 17th century, after dinner the gentlemen might put on a smoking jacket and retreat to a den or smoking room. Indeed in the beginning it was believed that the purpose of the ’smoking jacket’ ensured that their evening coat would not be burned by ashes nor absorb the smell of tobacco which the women found distasteful.

However these days there remain two theories about the first ever proper tuxedo that we would recognise today. In the first theory the tuxedo was invented by Pierre Lorillard IV of New York City according to one school of thought. Pierre Lorillard's family were wealthy tobacco magnates who owned country property in Tuxedo Park, just outside of New York City. At a formal ball, held at the Tuxedo Club in October 1886, the young Lorillard wore a new style of formal wear for men that he designed himself. He named his tailless black jacket the tuxedo after Tuxedo Park. The tuxedo caught on and became fashionable as formal wear for men.

The second theory, according to English clothing historian James Laver, has it that the idea of wearing black for evening wear was first introduced by the 19th Century British writer, Edward Bulwer-Lyttonn who wrote in 1828 that "people must be very distinguished to look well in black." It was only until later in the century that a village resident of Tuxedo Park, New York, James Brown Potter vacationed in England in the summer of 1886. Potter and his wife, Cora were introduced to the Prince of Wales {who later became King Edward VII} at a court ball in London. Potter asked the Prince for advice on formal dress. The Prince sent Potter to his own Saville Row tailor, Henry Poole & Co. Potter was fitted with a short black jacket and black tie that was unlike the formal tails with white tie that was worn in the United States for formal occasions.

The new tailless formal wear was said to have been designed by the Prince of Wales. It was Edward VII who in 1865 commissioned to his tailor Henry Poole to create a short blue evening jacket (midnight blue), to be used for informal evenings in his country estate of Sandringham. The Prince and his tailor drew inspiration from the British military uniforms of the time, which used short jackets with black ties.

This is where the two origins meet. James Brown Potter took the design back to the Tuxedo Club, where Pierre Lorillard modified it, named it, and made it popular during the Autumn ball. And so from that blessed bespoke collaboration between the Prince and Henry Poole & Co was born the ancestor of what everyone call today as tuxedos, the English ‘dinner jacket’ and the Americans ‘tuxedo’ - because of its original word spread starting from the homonymous village of Tuxedo Park.

Whatever the exact truth of its origin, black tie remains the evening attire par excellence. I’m flattered that anyone should ask me for style tips, especially regarding grooming and clothing for men.

I like to think that the true purpose of a man wearing black tie was to help the man show the humility to be an unassuming gentleman in effortlessly blending into the background so that his female companion could shine more by his side. A man in black tie was a gentleman who stood steadfastly there with an outstretched arm to make women feel more beautiful, but also to reassure them that all is right in the world.

If you get the opportunity to wear black tie then do please take it. The fact that you desire to wear one is already a great choice that makes you stand out from the loud bling-bling hoi polloi. But please don’t confuse wearing a black tie with snobbery. It isn’t, it’s just good manners. Manners maketh man as they say and so it’s not something one is born with but can only be learned. And don’t confuse fashion for style. The two are very different. Fashion is what you copy from others and style is what you express about yourself. Don’t conform to the passing fancies of the day (the loud, the garish, the attention seeking), or as Coco Chanel put it, ‘elegance is refusal’.

Always remember that style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.  

In theory, the elegance of the tuxedo stems from its simplicity - it’s an ultimate classic, the one outfit one doesn’t mess around with. In practice, many men find the rules governing this suit and its accoutrements to be annoyingly complex and complexly annoying.

My basic rule for men is ‘kiss’ - Keep It Simple, Stupid. 

Rule 1: Buy, don’t rent

It’s better if the black tie that you have is yours, and not rented. For one thing it’s a question of comfortability. You’ll be comfortable in your skin if you’re more comfortable in a suit that actually fits. Secondly, a rental doesn’t mean it’s good quality. The fabric is an important consideration.

In an ideal world you should get a bespoke tailored black tie made - ideally from any of the excellent tailors on Savile Row. But not all tailors are equal. Henry Poole & Co would be the traditional choice. I know for my older brothers they prefer Gieves & Hawkes and Huntsman because they have a more military draped cut, traditional but not stuffy.

In the long run it’s a once in a lifetime worthy investment if you take in consideration the cost of each potential rental along with how many times you would be wearing one throughout the coming years.

But I understand for many that may be an impossible proposition. The next best thing is to get a less expensive ‘made-to-measure’ black tie which is an increasing and welcome avenue for men to still have a suit or black tie made to fit them.

I would hesitate recommending buying off the peg because many high street brands have a rather relaxed attitude to tailoring and quality. If you must buy off the peg or rent then make sure the fabric is wool.

Rule 2: Black or Midnight blue and no other colour

Your black tie should be, to state the obvious, black. Not only is it the correct choice, it is the stylish choice. You can never go wrong with black. But if you’re feeling a tad adventurous go with Midnight blue. Midnight blue, being blacker than black, is not merely an exception to the rule but an exceptional choice for shimmering with distinction under the moonlight.

But what about white dinner jacket so beloved of James Bond or Indiana Jones? Yes, quite.

Traditionally, white was worn in place of a traditional black suit to deflect heat. This made it the perfect alternative for black-tie events that were held in the afternoon, during the Summer or at sea. The white jacket variation of black tie began was adopted in the early 1930s as a way for well-heeled vacationers to dress formally in the tropical heat without having to endure the heavy and dark-coloured fabrics that were standard for evening wear at the time. 

While dinner suits have become much more lightweight since then, the light-coloured jacket has remained a popular warm-weather alternative to its ebony progenitor. However, without a proper understanding of its form and function, the white dinner jacket easily becomes a flashy gimmick.  Subtlety and restraint are the keys to the successful execution of this classic variation.

Avoid other colours like the plague. I do notice from time to time in the shop windows here in Paris (as well as London and elsewhere) that some menswear boutiques display bright coloured dinner jackets.

Usually it’s the Italians (like Canali and Brunello Cucinelli who give in to their worst Italian impulses to show off their peacock flair) and others who really should know better (yes, the wine red velvet dinner jacket is very fetching but it belongs by log side fire, a cigar, and a cognac, so thank you Tom Ford). I even think some of them look nice and charming but it’s not black tie.

Besides a non-traditional black tie will be much more vulnerable to the whims of passing fashion where as traditional unfussy black tie can give peace of mind that it will never go out of style and thus will last longer.

Rule 3: Put yourself in a straight jacket

The first thing to decide is single or double-breasted and number of buttons. A safe and elegant option is one-button single breast which is both timeless and classical. Two buttons are fine, worn with the lower button undone. Double-breasted styles of any button configuration are also appropriate, but keep in mind that double-breasted jackets add some ‘bulk’ to the body. So take a hard look at your body type before you decide which one best flows off your shoulders. The buttons should be fabric-covered.

Hand in hand with the button style goes the lapel. The classic, formal option is peak lapel. Shawl lapel is somewhat less formal, but perfectly suitable. Shawl has become very popular, especially in slim versions. Notch lapels are frequently seen on off-the-rack tuxedos, but this is a more casual style, which should be reserved for suits. My preference would be to go for the peak lapel but make them sufficiently wide and not too slim.

The jacket was traditionally without vents, to keep seams (i.e. details) to a minimum, but double vents are also acceptable, providing comfort and movement. The pockets should be straight piped (slit without flap) and there should be a breast pocket.

Rule 4: Trousers, brace yourself

The trousers are ideally made without pleats or cuffs, with straight pockets following the side seam, in order to make them less visible. Black tie attire should never be worn with belts, so skip the belt loops. Traditionally one would use suspenders (braces) as it straightens the body shape as well as holds up the trousers. Choose black or white braces in fabric, rather than in leather, or in any case they should be matching the colour of the tuxedo. But I should note that side-fasteners are also a convenient option for some flexibility in the waist. The front closure should be clip-only, avoiding the button. Classically, the trousers will have a satin silk stripe covering the outer side seam on each leg, matching the lapel facing. This is a lovely detail, but nowadays sometimes considered old-fashioned. For this reason alone I would insist on it.

Rule 5: Don’t get shirty

The shirt should be plain white cotton, with a few distinct features. It should always have a ‘bib’ running down to front, which provides starchy stiffness (i.e. a higher level of formality). I’ve seen shirts in which vertical pleats in matching fabric are designed. I think they look plain and boring. Similarly if someone suggests to you a fly-front placket panel that covers the buttons and leaves a clean look then walk away immediately. Both these kind of shirts are for the lazy because they both want to avoid having to deal with those troublesome studs where the buttons would be.

I would advise always make sure your shirt has a starch like ‘bib’ that is attached made up of a textured pique fabric (pin dots), usually called Marcella. They look so much more elegant and classy.

Many would say that collar can be a normal Kent variety or a wing collar, which has little points turned down where the collar wings would be, but otherwise exposing the collar band. I personally think a wing collar is subject to whims of fashion and something best left in a 1920s set movie. Some can wear them very well (see Paul Newman in The Sting) but it depends on the girth of your neck. I think the wing collar can portray a man’s neck in an unflattering way.

I think the normal Kent collar is cleaner and classical, and it will never go out of style. The Duke of Windsor made the Kent collar hugely popular in his prime.

The cuffs should be double (French cuff), to accommodate cufflinks.

Many people also forego the buttons on evening shirts, instead leaving holes where you can attach studs (often matched with the cufflinks). If you are going to do that make sure that they’re mother of pearl studs.

Rule 6: Accessories are in the details

The shirt should not be visible at the waist, which calls for a something covering the gap between trousers and jacket, unless you opted for a double-breasted jacket. Traditionally, this is non-negotiable, but these days you often see people wearing no waist covering. My advice is unless you’re wearing a double breasted black tie (for which there is no need to wear a cummerbund) then always wear a cummerbund with a single breasted black tie.

You either use a cummerbund matching the bow tie (a cummerbund folds upwards, for convenient opera ticket storage) or a waistcoat. Please don’t commit the faux pas of making your cummerbund a colour other than black. Often people match their bow ties to their cummerbunds in garish bright colours which just defeats the object of why one wears black tie in the first place.

For the waistcoat, there are a few style options. Often, black tie waistcoats will have a rounded (horseshoe) cut with shawl lapels but a regular cut waistcoat is also acceptable. The key is to go simple and match the jacket fabric, facing and buttons. The back can be wool or lining, where we’d recommend the latter, to make the ensemble cooler. A stylish fob watch with chain would be a nice little detail that one can drop without telegraphing it loudly.

Consider having a white silk pocket square. You can fold it any way you like, but the so-called straight presidential fold is simple and sharp looking.

Socks must be knee length. Make them black. Again, the principle is one of clean lines and elegance. Disruptions below the trouser leg - stripes, shins, whatever - threaten to ruin the whole effect.

Shoes. Your shoes must always shine. This is one detail many men neglect. The shoes should be black patent leather. My preference would be for high quality Oxfords. I know some purists would insist that only opera pumps walk the one true path, but it is obvious on its face that those precious ribboned things, also called court shoes, are not completely in step with modern life. I know too that bit-toe loafers (thank you Tom Ford) are also more of the modern rage but I find them a little effeminate. So while I don’t see it as a style concession I do think Oxfords shined to a high sheen is the modern and best choice I would opt for a gentleman to go for. To me being comfortable in your shoes is also an equal and valid consideration.

Cufflinks and studs should be simple and classic, luxury metals and mother-of-pearl or onyx insets are nice touches. I know some punt for more personalised cuff links - like their regimental or college or some other institutional affiliation - and there is nothing wrong with that but I am on the fence about this. Generally I would leave that for your day time business suits. Showing off defeats the ethos of wearing the black tie in the first place. 

Rule 7: ‘Sprezzatura’ up your bow tie

‘Sprezzatura’ is a gorgeous Italian word - first appearing in Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier in 1528 - that means a disheveled elegance by way of studied carelessness. This perfectly sums up how one should wear the centre piece of the black tie - the bow tie.

Don’t be taken in by the very modern fad - thank you Hollywood and modern music pop stars - of wearing long neck ties (even if they are in black) as part of your black tie attire. Just don’t. It doesn’t matter how swish you may look you still are a prat for not dressing in real black tie.

Plain black silk and entirely self-tied. That’s a real bow tie.

Anyone and his dog can always identify a pre-tied bow tie by the fact that it's just a little too studied. Perfectly straight, perfectly symmetrical, and perfectly balanced. Just like plastic surgery, clip-on bow ties just look too perfect to be real. It is one of the most obvious signs that you're a style amateur.

Avoid pre-tied bow ties (and its ugly sibling the stick-on bow tie) like the plague....unless you’re a child who is unable to tie his own bow tie. But what if you don’t know how to tie a real bow tie? It’s never too late to learn. It’s the same level of difficulty as tying your shoes. If you don’t know ask someone who does know. If you’re buying a bespoke tailored black tie the tailor would most definitely show you how to do it. Easy peasy.

Remember bow ties are supposed to be imperfect and worn. That’s what makes the wearer authentic.

Perfect symmetry is not a goal worth pursuing here. Being an elegant gentleman is.

And that’s it. Those would be my informal rules for any man wanting to be a gentleman wearing black tie for a special occasion.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #black tie #tuxedo #dinner jacket #menswear #fashion #style #bespoke #savile row #gentlemen #culture #personal #henry poole #bow tie #monarchy #edward VII #etiquette

[dnarez]

Chapter 31 - Sleepover

On the next day you were watching TV while chatting with Hitoshi that had spent the entire day with you, when the accident with the Hero Killer, and the Nomus happened that night.

Keigo was away and called you at once when he discovered that the attack was next to where your hospital was, and only calmed down when you told him that you were with Hitoshi. As he requested you passed your cellphone to the wolf nurse, and after a few minutes of chatting she came back and handed your cellphone to you.

"Shinso-kun, can you call your parents and ask if you can stay here for the night?" she looks at him with a knowing smile.

Hitoshi gets up from his chair and nods calling his mother at once, you can see a  small smile on his face.

You look at wolf nurse curious. "What happened for you to let him stay over?"

"Your brother told me that he doesn't want you alone when the league of villains is so close, he bought my silence, so that Shinso could stay with you." She says as she  puts medication on your IV.

"What did he 'bought' you with?" You look at her suspiciously.

She mumbles something, and you don't understand "Sorry, what did you say?"

She sighs blushing "A date... he bought me with a date" she clears her throat, trying to evade any more questions.

Hitoshi walks to her and hands her his cellphone "my mom wants to talk to you" she  takes the chance to escape as soon as she gets it.

"My brother has too much credit on that fat ass of his" you glare at the back of the nurse and hears your... friend? chuckling.

"Well... he is the hero number 3, and the youngest one at that" you nod at his words and look at him.

"She let you stay?" he nods and smiles

"I have already talked about you to her, so it wasn't hard to-"

"You talked about me with your mom!?" you blushed hard at that.

"W-well... yeah" he blushes and put his hand on the back of his neck "She wanted to know why I was going to the hospital so much, and since you are my only friend since the start of the year she connected the dots and was asking about you non stop after that...."

You nod still blushing and smile at his words "I'm sorry for worrying you all... I'm glad that I have so many people around me, and... most of all I like having you... here... with me..." you get redder and redder until you finish, looking at your own hands and inspecting your nails.

You hear fumbling, and then you see his hand on top of yours, when you meet his beautiful purple eyes, it takes a few moments to notice anything besides his deep and hypnotizing eyes, your eyes start to travel through his face, his eyebrows that are kinda cut on both ends, 'his nose is cute', 'his jaw line is strong', you try to imagine how he would look like with a beard, 'he would look manly'. The bags under his eyes that add to his charm, his ears... 'he would look good with earrings'. You keep inspecting his face with no shame at all.

While you are inspecting him, he's doing the same to you, 'did she always had that small dot under her right ear?' He likes the way you blush so hard that he can see small pale freckles 'probably from the sun, she should use more sunscreen does she even know how dangerous the sun can be!?', your ears are pierced, 'but I never saw her  wearing earrings', 'her eyebrow is kinda bushy, like her brother's', but your eyes, oh your eyes... he loves how you have a spot of yellow on your e/c colored eyes, you look nothing like Hawks, but you still have small resemblances to him. "I-"

You came back from admiring him and looked into his eyes, to find him looking at your hands together, you smile and intertwines your fingers with his "You...?"

"I-... Would you like to go-... on a date with me?" you look at his surprised 'why are you surprised?' and blush as you nod eagerly "I just need to go back on stage, you know?" you look to your empty back "It's weird... I can't feel the vibrations and stuff, I feel like I lost my eyes"

Hitoshi puts his hand on your shoulder, making you focus on him again "Okay, we will have a decent date when you are healthy enough, then... where do you wanna go?" he caresses your knuckles with his thumb.

"I think that just a walk on a park and a place to drink something would be enough... simple you know?" your eyes focus on the movement of his hand.

"Hmm... How about an arcade, or cinema, or maybe we can-"

You remembered that a cat café opened recently "HOW ABOUT A CAT Café!?" you smile at him, and see his eyes shining.

"There is one near my house and-" Hitoshi is interrupted by the door being open by the wolf nurse.

"Everything set! I hope you found that chair comfy, cus' you're gonna sleep in it" she hands his phone back.

"Wait, what's your name? I can't keep calling you Wolf Nurse, nor can I call you Amaterasu, since... ya know... you have a sister that is also my nurse"

She stops and thinks about it "Okay, you can call me by my first name, but... it's not original nor anything..." she blushes lightly "My name is Okami..."

"Okami...?!" you and Shinso laugh at that "What? and your sister is Kitsune?"

Okami hides her face on her hands "Yes..."

You both giggle at that

"It's not my fault that my parents didn't have a good imagination" she pouts, her ears glued to her head and her tail between her legs.

(for those that didn't get it, her name is literally "Wolf", and the same goes to her sister with "Fox" as her name)

You both stop laughing and nod "Sorry, but you got to admit, that it's funny"

She sighs but nods "Yeah, yeah, now excuse me I'll go get your dinner" she gets out of the room leaving you two alone.

Shinso looks at you, and you smile at him, you move to the side of the bed to give him some space. "Please sit here with me"

He looks apprehensive at first, but you pout and pats your bed some more, Hitoshi sighs and gives in, sitting down next to you, it's a little awkward at first, but when you hold his hand and lays your head on his shoulder he relaxes and smiles at you. "I like you... very, very much" he says as he buries his face on your hair, its smell likes lavender again, you had told him that your brother got your beauty products from your home, you probably had to use the hospital one since the smell was different yesterday.

You smile "I like you too" after staying like that for some time he pulls his phone from his pocket  and puts a movie for you two to watch. You argued with him after he chooses RIO.

Likewise, you huff "There are better movies than this one, let's watch UP!"

"No, I don't want to cry within 10 minutes of movie" he keeps scrolling through the Netflix list, trying to find a movie.

Okami comes back and lets your food on your lap, then runs off when she heard "code blue" from down the corridor.

You eat everything while complaining about not being sick and arguing about what movie you two will watch.

When Okami comes back looking tired and pissed at the discussion of the two she just sighs and offers her opinion.

"Why don't you watch Your Name? It's a good and heart warming movie, or literally ANY movie from Studio Ghibli, they are all very good"

You two look at each other and smile "Your Name it is!" you hand her your empty plate and puts your head on his shoulder, holding his empty hand.

Okami scoffs at you two, but even so, she hands you both a bar of black chocolate.

You two wave at her and look back at the screen when the movie starts.

Hitoshi holds his phone with his right hand and put his left on your hip, holding you close with a firm but comforting hand.

.

.

.

.

.

....................................................................

Tag List:

cutietootierootandlooty

OMG ALMOST 2000 KUDOS ON AO3!!! So I made this one a little longer than I normally do.

#bnha #bnha x y/n #bnha shinso hitoshi #bnha shinsou #bnha hawks #mha x y/n #mha x reader #mha x you #mha #mha takami keigo #mha hawks #mha shinsou #hawk x reader #x reader #reader insert #reader #wing hero hawks #pro hero hawks #hawksbnha #hawks x you #hawks x reader #hawks #hawk's sister

[anerdinallherglory]

Approaching Sun (27)

Author’s Note: I am SO sorry about how long this chapter took to update. Taking on master’s classes on top of work has been a rough transition. The majority of this chapter had been planned and typed a long time ago, but it just took me ages to organize it, detail it, clean it up, and fluff it with a fork. For those of you who have contacted recently, (and I probably have yet to respond) this chapter is for you. Without your encouragement, who knows how much longer this chapter would have taken.

Forgive me. Hope you enjoy.

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Chapter 27: Confirmation

Sakura had fully intended on eavesdropping on Sasuke’s conversation with Satou; in fact, it was the only reason that Sakura had allowed the interaction to transpire between her patient and her teammate. After Sasuke had closed the door firmly behind her, Sakura had walked heavily down the hallway so her footsteps could be heard. Her next step was to take the stairs, walk silently up two floors, and listen in by opening the window directly above Satou’s. Sakura had noted that Satou’s patient room window had been cracked open. Surely her ninja skills would be well-adapted to a simple eavesdropping.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, as Sakura walked down the hall, she noted that her breathing was becoming short. Her chest was tightening considerably, a feeling that she dismissed at first to anxiety at the current situation. When she paused to consider it, Sakura tried to swallow past her itchy throat. A terrifying realization came over Sakura has she glanced down at her hands that held the freshly pulverized Ashuwa.

Shit.         

Sakura covered the mortar, sprinted down the remainder of the hallway, and took a right. She held tightly to the Ashuwa despite the situation; she couldn’t afford to sacrifice what they had acquired in her state of panic. Sakura tried her best to remember the hospital’s layout; there was a drug storage room on every level, so thankfully Sakura wouldn’t have to take stairs in her compromised situation. Turning another corner, Sakura was relieved to finally stumble up to the door marked “薬” for medication. Placing the mortar of Ashuwa on the ground, Sakura managed to focus through her shortness of breath and perform the sign of the ram to channel her chakra to her palm. Placing it on the center of the door, Sakura nearly stumbled as the door received her chakra signature and swung open to grant her access to the room.

Sakura’s vision began to blur as she shuffled through the drawers and cabinets. She could barely read the itemized labels of the stored items. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. She felt lethargic and her throat was swelling quickly. She should have taken Mako’s warning more seriously. He had told her of the drug’s disuse in the medical environment due to many allergic reactions to it. This was what she had been testing earlier when she picked a generous pinch of Ashu from the ground and placing it in her mouth; however, her and Mako both had gotten distracted by the issue of Satou.

Sakura cursed at herself for being careless but felt confident in her approach. If only she could find the medicine. She narrowed her focus to the vials on the top shelf and coughed violently as she reached for one. Stumbling into the shelf resulted in several of them busting onto the ground. After locating the blue tagged bottle labeled “adrenaline,” Sakura threw open cabinet after cabinet until she found the drawer of packaged syringes. She was choking now, a fish out of water and she aimed the needle into the top of the bottle; her hands shook as she waisted even more time trying to draw the medicine into the plunger.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke was trying to outwalk Mako, who was smiling kindly and attempting to make small talk as they quickly made their way down the hall from Satou’s room. Sasuke thought if he could just stride quickly enough, Mako might take the hint and part ways with him.

Sasuke frowned at Mako’s prattling of, “I have to admit. I was concerned with the whole genjutsu approach, but I think that it might be pretty effective. That was brilliant!”

Sasuke stopped his break-neck pace and narrowed his eyes at the medic, scrutinizing him carefully. “What do you want?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mako innocently, crossing his arms behind him.

Sasuke debated Mako for a second. Here was a skilled shinobi of medicine, an assistant to his friend, and Sakura addressed him casually. This trip was the first occasion that Sasuke had ever met him, yet Mako recognized Sasuke’s attempt at genjutsu before he had even performed it. Perhaps he was knowledgeable of the sharingan; many people were. It was Sasuke’s past of constantly being targeted that had the Uchiha wary. Was this the reason Sasuke was inclined to distrust him, or was it the fact that Sakura was involved?

Sasuke clarified. “I want to know who you are and what you want.”

Mako laughed and smiled nicely. “Well, I am a medic ninja here at the Suna hospital. I have been appointed to assist Sakura-san during her stay with us. Kankuro was pretty adamant about it.”

“Hn.” Sasuke responded before walking forward again. Mako sped to catch up.

“Honestly,” he continued, “Sunagakure owes a lot to Sakura-san. You have probably heard this before, but we have advanced due to her and the Leaf’s medical supervision and instruction. We are something in her debt.”

Sasuke didn’t respond. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Sasuke supposed it made sense that Gaara and Kankuro would assign the most ambitious learner and fellow medicinal expert as Sakura’s assistant. Sunagakure wanted to take advantage of every lesson and tip available. Sakura’s discipline and dedication to the medical practice made her share a common interest with the professionals here. Not everyone always had some double meaning to their actions like most ninja in the shinobi world.

As Sasuke and Mako rounded the corner to the left, they paused as several people ran past them in the opposite direction, back toward the center of the third floor. One man who bumped into Mako’s shoulder turned to look at him in recognition, jogging backwards. “Code 10. Haruno-san.”

“Shit!” Mako cursed, chasing after the man who spoke. Sasuke didn’t know what “Code 10” meant, but to see a panicked response in connection to the name “Haruno” had Sasuke quickly following.

“What is it?” he demanded, matching Mako’s stride this time.  

“Anaphylaxis” Mako said breathlessly as they rounded the final corner and nearly collided with several attendants outside a small room in the hallway. Someone was kneeling just outside the door and Sasuke couldn’t make out the questions they were asking before until he began to make his way through with Mako right on his heels.

When he came in line with the entrance, Sasuke froze. Sakura was on her back, broken glass surrounding her on a messy floor. A medic was kneeling down beside her and removing a syringe from her hand. “We need to get her into one of the rooms. Now.” Sasuke’s heart was racing as someone wheeled a gurney past him. Mako began pulling him away from the entrance to which Sasuke almost shrugged off.

Sakura’s pink head was closest to the door so Sasuke couldn’t get a good look at her face until they began lifting her onto the gurney and wheeled her past him. To Sasuke’s great relief, his medic friend was fully alert despite the hives across her face and swelling lips. When making eye contact with him, she raised her hand and waved awkwardly.

“Hey.” She said past swollen lips.

“Hey?!” Sasuke responded, irritation quickly replacing his concern. Was she serious?! Mako let out a surprised laugh at her casual greeting. Sasuke ignored him completely and began tailing the gurney as it rolled away with her.

“What the hell happened?” he asked her with pointed annoyance. After failing to mumble past her tomato mouth, Sasuke shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“I’ll explain,” Mako said from the other side of the swiveling table. Sasuke spent the next several minutes listening to Mako explain a basic understanding of anaphylaxis and staring disbelievingly at Sakura as they unloaded her onto a bed. They began to hook her up to an IV and other machinery that would monitor her pulse and blood pressure.

Mako continued his explanation, “Antihistamines are what comes next. Luckily, she responded to the epinephrine and doesn’t need intubation. We’ll have to monitor her for a few hours just to make sure she doesn’t have another episode.”

Sakura was nodding her blistered head in agreement at everything he said. Sasuke just glared at her.

“Why did you eat a plant you knew was toxic?” he asked crossly. She shrugged her shoulders, the only response she could really make at the moment.

“I should have stopped you, Haruno-san.” Mako bowed. “It is all my fault.”

Sakura began shaking her head to dismiss Mako’s apology. Then she began to gesture for Sasuke to come over to her bedside. When he was close enough, Sakura pointed toward his hand.

“What?” he asked, looking down at it. My hand? What about it? He sure wasn’t going to hold her hand if that was what she was implying. Especially not in front of anyone.

A word made it past her lips but Sasuke didn’t understand it. “Hn?”

“Rath,” she repeated, still pointing. “Da ya hath a rath?”

“Oh,” Mako exclaimed. “You were handling the Ashuwa earlier, Sasuke. Do you have a rash on your hand?”

Ah. Sasuke’s hand was partially gloved except for his fingertips, which were unmarred. It had been approximately 30-45 minutes since Sasuke had even touched the plant. Sakura had sampled the herb 10 minutes before that, so it was too early to tell if Sasuke would have a similar reaction. He didn’t have a rash on his fingertips though.

Another physician handed Mako a familiar mortar and removed his disposable gloves after touching it. Mako immediately pinched a piece out of it and offered it to the Uchiha.

Sasuke responded with a glare as Mako continued to hold it out.  “You’re not suggesting I eat that?”

“We need to make sure that you don’t develop a similar reaction, especially if you plan on using the chakra pills that Sakura is making.”

Sakura was mutely nodding in agreement and Sasuke annoyingly spat out toward her, “Why? You want me to end up looking like you?” Her nodding turned to shaking.

She followed with, “He’th ight. Eat wow you ah here.”  Sasuke scoffed and blinked in disbelief at her communication efforts. How was she even talking?!

This was an absolute lunatic idea. She wanted the BOTH of them in hospital beds in this village while Gaara was away handling potential psychos that were after them? It was already a concern that she was incapacitated; Sasuke sure as hell wasn’t going into anaphylaxis too by choice.

“I’ll wait until you’re better,” he answered, shooing Mako’s hand away from his face. As he did so, Sasuke pointed at the door, ordering Mako to just go and check on Satou’s kid. Mako blinked at him in confusion before taking the hint and exiting with that same excuse.

When the silence grew thick between them, Sasuke took a casual stance against the wall next to Sakura’s bedside.

“Ya are wathing time,” Sakura began, looking guilty despite her swollen mouth as she tucked her hands beneath the covers and looked around at nonexistent people in the room; anywhere but at him. She was right. He was wasting time, and Sasuke mentally shook himself as he realized his indifference to that. He was trying to remind himself of his goal but in that moment, Sasuke’s feelings were outweighing that purpose.

He turned his back and peered out the small window at the darkening sky. He glanced back at her briefly before turning back to the window. “Are you okay?”

There wasn’t a reply which had the Uchiha worried and he turned to see her wide-eyed expression at his question. The face Sakura was making looked as if Sasuke had grown two heads. “I mean,” he added quickly, “with a mouth like that, it looks difficult to breath.”

She immediately covered her mouth and frowned at him, obviously embarrassed at his words. “I ah fine!” she shouted in embarrassment into her fingers and turned her head. Sasuke resisted the urge to smirk.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

After the administration of the antihistamine, Sakura didn’t wait long before she began removing her own IV. She felt bad for the time that had been wasted today when she was supposed to be making the food pills. Sakura was just relieved that the Ashu had been tested before she gave Sasuke a drug that could potentially kill him.  

“What are you doing?” Sasuke asked as she removed the monitor and turned off the flatlining machine before anyone came in at the sound. “They said it would be best to stay the night.”

“I’m ah do-ter” she told him. Yes, Sakura would have advised the same thing to her patients, but she was out of danger now and she felt anxious despite her drowsiness. She was troubling Sasuke enough by accompanying him on his mission. She didn’t want to get in his way; she was supposed to be making things easier.

Sasuke scoffed at her dismissive, mumbled declaration as she stood from the bed. She blinked heavily and managed to stand upright. It would still take a little bit of time for her to completely pass out from the side effects, so Sakura figured the time she had left awake could be spent productively.

The medic immediately went over to the cabinets and pulled out disposable gloves and a mask from the drawer. The mask would serve two purposes: 1) protect her from inhaling the Ashuwa as she worked and 2) hide her ridiculous “tomato” mouth as Sasuke referred to it. Ugh. Sakura could die from embarrassment.

“What are you doing now?” Sasuke grumbled irritably, following her as she moved. She immediately headed over to the mortar on the cabinet and pinched some of the yellow herb, skin protected from the substance thanks to the gloves.

“Eat.” She stated plainly. They couldn’t proceed further if Sasuke was likely to have a similar allergic reaction. Sakura would have to scrap their entire progress by disposing of the food pill batch. She would be back to square one and they would have to start all over by finding a new foundational herb with the correct properties to achieve the correct results.

“Forget it,” the Uchiha deadpanned before making to head for the door. Sakura caught hold of his hand, stumbling in the process and taking a hard fall on her knee. She winced visibly. That would bruise later. Sasuke immediately turned and helped her up and Sakura thanked her mask for hiding her blushing cheeks as well.

With the same hand Sasuke had offered, Sakura turned his palm up and placed the Ashuwa in his cupped fingers. “No time.”

Sasuke glared at her for what seemed like several minutes before reluctantly dumping it down his throat. They both knew he had to for his own sake.

Sakura nodded before trashing her gloves and retrieving a new pair. She couldn’t risk leaving traces around the hospital and anyone else coming into contact with the pollen if it was responsible for anaphylaxis. Mako had said that it was such a common reaction that they had stopped using it altogether.

Sakura halted in her steps, considered her plan, and decided to grab the entire box of disposable gloves. She handed Sasuke the mortar.

Sasuke gave her an expression that radiated annoyance but somehow was miraculously completely blank. If she could speak clearly in this moment, Sakura would have asked him how he managed that.

“Fowwo” she murmured through her mask-covered lips, pairing the word with a beckoning wave. “We’ll tesh your weaction why we wait.” She was shuffling out the door before Sasuke had the chance to say anything more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke trailed his teammate from the room, carrying the mortar of Ashuwa he had ground up earlier that day. This was one of the few times in his life that Sasuke somewhat regretted his decision to refuse the artificial limb that Tsunade had made for he and Naruto. Sakura was walking with one arm against the wall for support and Sasuke’s one and only hand was currently occupied.

It was well after dark now and many of the staff members were busy attending overnight patients, so they weren’t stopped by anyone as Sakura found her way back to the medicine room, which was now cleaned of broken glass and everything back in its space. She reached up and grabbed several bottles of adrenaline and then dug through the drawer for syringes.

“Sakura,” Sasuke began as she dropped some of the things she was holding onto the floor. “You need rest. We can finish this later.”

“We hafe to wait for weaction anyway. Might as well make the pills.”

“I feel fine.” Sasuke reassured her. It was true. Time had passed enough for his fingertips to develop a rash if there was going to be a topical reaction. He had yet to show signs from consumption.

Sakura strode past him again, this time walking backwards to face him. He could make out a smile beneath her mask which somewhat irked the Uchiha. She seemed awfully cheery despite nearly dying from anaphylaxis. Sasuke concluded that it had to be the medicine making her drowsy.

“Turn around before you fall,” he grumbled. She laughed as she began to walk slowly up the stairs. He hurried up behind her and offered her his elbow which she took thankfully despite his huffed “So annoying.” Her laugh was her only response.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sakura was practically nodding off as she watched Sasuke mix and prepare the batch of ingredients for the food pills. She felt relieved at finally seeing headway as Sasuke rolled the batter into 1-inch circular doses according to her instructions and placed them in the hospital’s oven.  Sakura had tried to do so herself, but Sasuke had insisted she sit down to avoid screwing them up and risking their progress. Sakura allowed him to take the reins, praying desperately that the food pills would turn out and serve their purpose after such a hassle.

“Sasuke,” she whispered, immediately touching her lips behind the mask as she noticed the decrease in swelling. The ice Sakura had retrieved from icebox was doing its job.

“Hm?” he answered, trashing the latex glove he used to protect his skin and replacing his own. He turned to her then in the dim light, but Sakura couldn’t make out his expression because the only light in the room was a lamp over the counter workspace behind him. There was a shadow concealing his features and Sakura was too tired to try to make them out.

A lot easier now that her lips were shrinking, Sakura asked, “How are you? Any shortness of breath?”

“I’m fine,” he stated simply.

“Good,” she replied, thanking that ridiculous Uchiha blood of his for not reacting to the Ashuwa like her’s had. How ironic, Sakura thought, that even Sasuke’s genetics seemed to be working for him even in this circumstance. How superior he must feel.

Reclined across the small seating bench in the corner, Sakura placed her chin on her chest and inhaled the gentle night breeze that was coming from the opened window. It seemed to be the first night that the sand wasn’t trying to shatter the glass; to be honest, Sakura was surprised that the hospital windows even opened. Perhaps they were high enough on the fourth story to avoid the sand barrage.

Sasuke came to stand before her and Sakura blinked sleepily up at him in an antihistamine induced haze.

“Sleep,” the Uchiha before her ordered. “I’ll wake you when they’re done.”

Sakura wanted to argue that she could manage to stay awake for another 20 minutes while the chakra pills roasted, but she wasn’t that confident in her ability to do so. At most, she could manage maybe 5 more minutes if she concentrated hard enough. She wanted to ask Sasuke about the conversation he had with Satou.

“Sit with me,” she said, but it sounded more like a question. There was a minute of silence as Sasuke observed her. The bench wasn’t roomy, but Sakura was too drowsy to be apprehensive about their proximity. Sasuke must have not been either, because he sat and exhaled when he did so. Perhaps he was tired too.

. . . . . . . . . . . 

Sasuke tried not to lean away from her as she settled into his side. He cursed her medicated self for such confidence in a small, darkened space. He counted down the time in his head; he would only have to stay seated here for 17 more minutes. For some reason, that time seemed both entirely too long and entirely too short.

“Satou,” Sakura began, reaching up to take off the medical mask on her face. Sasuke tried not to smirk at the lips that were still puckered despite having minimized in size. He blinked past the image to focus on her words.

“Hn,” he responded sourly, thinking of the man whose name had just been dropped between them like a heavy, unwanted stone. Sasuke didn’t particularly feel like talking about that man. He had, had enough of Satou for one day.

“How did it go?” his teammate probed politely despite being nosey.

“Fine,” he replied shortly, not wanting Sakura to find out about too many details. How would she react if she knew he had used his Sharingan on him? Probably not well. Sakura would continue to dig for more specifics if Sasuke didn’t bring an end to the topic promptly. “His son needs to be sent to Konoha.”

Sakura nodded, not seeming too surprised at Sasuke assessment. Perhaps she had been thinking similarly. “Thank you for talking to him.”

It wasn’t much of a talk, but Sasuke wasn’t going to tell her that, so he just responded again with a finalizing “Hn.”

Sasuke couldn’t help but jump when Sakura’s fingers touched his right hand. “Sasuke,” she began, almost in sleepy inquiry as she brushed his palm with her thumb and index. There was hopefulness in her voice and Sasuke cursed her medication again for her damn self-assurance.

“I..” she began, but Sasuke cut her off before she continued. Sasuke was almost absolutely certain that he knew which words would come next.

“Shh,” he replied, leaning comfortably into her side as his answer to her unspoken confession. “Just sleep.”

After a few breaths, and when Sakura’s head nodded onto his shoulder, Sasuke scooped up her hand into his, finding the courage to splay her fingers with his own and fasten them into place. Even when he would let her go in 15 minutes, Sasuke would lock the moment into his heart to last him the rest of his life.  

. . . . . . . . . . . .

When he counted down to the last second in his mind, Sasuke counted a few extra seconds. And then a few more. He thought about letting the doses of chakra pills burn to a crisp in the oven, but he decided against it, reluctantly releasing Sakura’s hand and pulling away from her heavy head.

Making sure that Sakura wouldn’t wake, Sasuke silently rose, turned off the oven and retrieved the pills from inside. He placed them on the counter quietly and turned to lean against the counter. He watched Sakura’s sleeping form for a few minutes, considering if he should wake her as he promised or let her sleep longer. What was the possibility of sitting beside her and stealing a few moments more?

Sasuke knew he was playing a dangerous game. Tomorrow, the Uchiha would test the chakra pill nearby and he and Sakura both were aware of what would happen after that. With the issue of his chakra reserves addressed, he would return to the desert to attempt cross-connecting dimensions again. They both realized Sasuke couldn’t waste any more time.

And with that thought, Sasuke’s stern resolve slipped. He would distance himself later, he thought. He would put the space back between them tomorrow. Tonight, Sasuke wanted to be next to Sakura.

He sat back down beside her and softly took up her hand again.  Just for a little while longer.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Sakura woke in the middle of the night from the pain in her arched neck. She blinked past sleep and realized that she was folded into Sasuke’s side with her knees tucked and Sasuke’s head leaning against hers. Not only that, but Sakura froze as she realized her hand was entwined with Sasuke’s between them. The moment was fragile, and Sakura almost cried of joy and then heartbreak as it shattered when Sasuke responded to her shifting.

The weight of his head on hers lifted and Sakura tried not to grab desperately at him to keep him from moving. Instead, Sakura pivoted her eyes to his as his sleep faded and realization appeared on his face.

Sasuke released her hand and stood hurriedly, saying nothing despite how Sakura’s heart wanted answers. She wanted to know if this moment was genuine or if she had been the one to hold onto him in her sleep. Sakura wanted to believe desperately that Sasuke had allowed himself to be transparent for just a moment and had secretly revealed his true feelings for her by holding her as she slept. Had that been the case? Was she being too optimistic? This wouldn’t be the first time their hands had touched. Had he been supporting her as a friend, or did he feel something more? She had to know.

“Sasuke,” she began, but he cut her off for the second time that night.

“Good. You’re awake. Let’s go.” He declared, hastily placing the finished chakra pills in an open travel container on the counter.  

Sakura stood then, heart racing and adrenaline pumping as she worked up the courage to come up behind him as he worked. She wasn’t going to confess this time. She was going to ask Sasuke if he had been confessing to her while she slept?

“Do you… love me?”

Sakura was almost certain that he stopped breathing altogether as he paused his task. The Uchiha took a minute to compose himself before exhaling. “When are you going to stop that?”

The statement was meant to be cold, but the fact that it came out so desperately low gave Sakura a rare feeling of hope despite the words. “When are you?” she responded calmly in a whisper.

“What?” he asked incredulously, finally turning to her.

She gradually took the last few steps between them and stood carefully in front of him. “When are you going to stop pretending that you have no feelings for me?”

Sakura expected a scoff, a ridicule, but what she got in return was painful fear in Sasuke’s usually expression-less eyes.

It was true, she realized. Sasuke did have feelings for her. There had been so many signs, but Sakura had been unsure about all of them until this very moment. But what had just passed between them was confirmation. Sakura almost lost her breath at the realization.

“You’re mistaken,” finally came the blunt retort, but it was too late.

Sakura was already closing the inches between them. Her fingers were already brushing his cheeks as she brought his face to hers. She hesitated. Just for a second. Just long enough for him to pull away from her. But Sasuke barely took a breath before Sakura touched her lips to his.

#approaching sun #sasusaku #sasuke and sakura #sasukeshinden #sakura hiden #Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #ssfanfiction #sasusakufanfiction #blank period #naruto #naruto fanfiction

[mortior]

Ask answers below! Some are heckin’ old. As always, I sometimes forget which ones I’ve already answered, so if I missed any, please feel free to send me a reminder poke!

Anonymous said: Do you still like dirkhal? And are you still planning on putting out a sequel to endangered?

I tell you what, DirkHal is my Homestuck perma-ship. I think every fandom I’ve ever had comes with that one ship I will forever love. I’ve been a Link/Sheik shipper since childhood. ANYways yes the sequel, which is basically a bridge to the actual novel-length sequel, will happen one way or another. If not a VN then as a text adventure thing, because it wasn’t designed to be a fic, if that makes sense. Like I’ve mentioned before, if I ever give up on it, you’ll see me post a synopsis of the plot.

Anonymous said: Read Endangered and honestly my mind is blown! It fun to read stories like this one that was so vastly interesting and stand out. I really hope to read more of your work in the future.

Oh wow, it blows my mind that folks are still reading it for the first time! :0c Thank you!!

Anonymous said: Hi. Thank you for sharing your amazing writing with us, they are providing me with needed distraction right now. Good luck with your program :)

Thank you v much =u= honestly it’s been super rough lately and I’m barely keeping my life together atm, but I realized that taking a hiatus from fandom stuff wasn’t doing me any favors. If all goes well I’ll be graduating at the end of the year tho!

Anonymous said: Hey, weird question but do you know what happened to RedLament? They were one of the more active DirkDave artists for awhile and I come back to tumblr and they're gone?

Ooh that username looked familiar and then I looked up their art and I THINK they actually moved to pillowfort. Looks like the site is down r/n tho, but if you remind me later and/or message me off anon I can try to get that link for you. They might be on twitter too but I’ve recently repurposed mine into a mostly non-fandom nsfw space.

bloominghearts said: Sorry to add to the message count, but it's good to hear from you. ♡ I'm working through my thesis atm as well and it's pretty rough and time consuming, so I totally get that. Take care, Mort! 🤘🏻

Ahh thank you, yeah I’m in that final year and it’s a real beast. Gotta keep remembering that I chose this / did this to myself. :’)

cryptid-with-no-forest said: Hey man you do what you gotta do Hope life is goin well Ngl i did miss ya

Ngl I missed y’all too ;-; thank u for the kind message.

Anonymous said: I may or may not have made fanart of Endangered fairly recently but I think Tumblr is hiding it from you :y

Oooh I’ll look for it, yeah occasionally things just don’t show up in my searched tags / notifications, tumblr is a rotten old potato sometimes.

Anonymous said: im so happy to hear youre still working on the endangered vn, kudos for sticking it out!! i dont think ive ever finished a vn before lol. you and a couple other ao3 writers are whats kept me in the fandom this long, and endangered is genuinely one of my favorite fanworks of all time (i love murderbots So Much.) are you still using renpy for the vn? pls send help if so its hard to get the hang of ;n;

Hhh thank you ;u; oof YEAH there was a big learning curve with renpy, I think I spent most of the first month in the forums trying to troubleshoot and figure out how to do stuff. The functions are so complicated I don’t know what 75% of the code does now, despite writing it myself. orz But if I can do it, anyone can do it! I had never touched a line of code in my life before learning the basics of renpy which is like code lite but still!

#mtext #bloominghearts #cryptid-with-no-forest #ask answers

[genius11rare]

Chit Chat 111620   11-16-20

Chitchat 111620 with Jack Michael Jeremys Chair and the disembodied voice of alfredo (no he left after set up immediately , never heard him) id put “keep reading” if i knew how for this sorry

Jack: hi im jack with my friends michael and Spearow the dragon (jeremys not here , theres a spyro … pillow i think on his chair).. So we made the mistake of doing 2 minecrafts backtoback  and it ended like 20 minutes ago then like “oh yeah we have other stuff we need to set up before”… Michael:  yeah this isnt so much a chitchat it is just a chit not really time for a chat. Jack: how about we chit about recapping extralife?  It went really well thank you everyone who watched and contributed, trying to get chat up right now…. Cuz we got Chit trying to get the Chat as well… this is the 4th year in a row we raised over 1 million$ , and were having some auctions for charity. Up for auction: 3D printed gen lock heads , pictures of the Spooky Hour (Gen Notes i thought they were done with that?) , the jon risinger bob ross segment painting , some f*face hats , some wood and glass sculptures (jeremy comes back during around this) … and gratz to jeremy for urinating and coming back *on time*  Jeremy: hey my bathroom is a few steps from here… that whole time was spent peeing Oooohhhh better. Jack: michael , jeremy got anything to say about whats happened recently. Michael: no uh…. Just recovering… Jeremy: oh that was hard to watch michael. Jack: oh i have this picture i posted on twitter of fiona milking gavin…. Spraying milk into his eyes , sounds weird when i phrase it like that see if i can post it. Fiona somehow got both eyes in one shot , none in the mouth (the goal) just eyes. If you don't know the context it looks like hes spraying milk from his head like some kind of anime demon… then the paintballs happened…. Usually with paintballs theyve been going a while and theyve calmed down , that time it was new compressors and we JUST started using them for michael and gavin (Michael: “they” as in the paintballs themselves , theyve calmed down) yeah so that time they still had a lot of OOMPF and it was like getting kicked in the head over and over. Michael: no that's good , kick me in the head all you want. I went second just so i could tell how bad it hurt , so i knew where to hit gavin to make it hurt the most… immediately flipped on it like “he doesnt deserve this” and shot the face (which hurt the least) as much to spare him… i did do a few tummy shots but still. Jack: the crotch was also a good spot cuz of the cockblocker… problem is if you missed they go left or right into your thigh Michael: the thigh and stomach hurt the most … our thighs are black Jeremy: were also doing the vinyl  Jack: oh yeah we reached our goal and putting AH the musical on a vinyl , plus a new song with Fiona ive been working with her trying to get the tone and everything (Gen notes im gonna guess its there so Still in the Air isnt…) … Jeremy wanna say what you offered up? Jeremy: yeah were doing the AH rap version 2 (Gen notes either A. a version with the rest of  “The B Team” to have verses , or B. redoing it without HIM) , been working on a beat for it … ive written one verse mine so far (Gen notes , think its option B then) but i feel like its a little TOO mean so i may dial it back down a bit … the plan is shorter verses but more people , so hopefully Myself , michael gavin , Jack , Fiona , the twins , Matt , Lindsay and MAYBE a verse where the  support room jump in one bar at a time , still in the works. Jack: yeah you guys DEMOLISHED goals, chads daughter she is so sweet… she saved up chore money and wanted to donate it all of her own , she wasn't convinced to she just wanted to donate 20$ which just broke everyone - well chad and i , caiti held it together, so we asked the audience to match her 20$...  over the course of 10 minutes that 20$ became 65000$... we broke extralife we legit broke their intake of donations. We also had 2 people there who if we needed to hand something to someone wed give it to them , theyd “baptize” it as covid precaution then give it to whoever. Michael: except cloth they were like “you touch cloth you own it” … was like i could walk away with a lot of things right here , this towel? This towels done (Jack: you just going around grabbing curtains) … (start paraphrasing)  we always want extralife to be like the best show ever cuz its for a good cause , but then this year we were like “how would we even pull it off”... i don't think 2020 extralife couldve gone better given everything (end paraphrasing) “fave extralife 2020 moment” Jack: my thing… Chad James is a freaking beast and towards the end the last segment we did was called the sweet and sour hour where caiti would do something nice and chad would get punished … it ended up getting stacked so we started doing some at once. At one point Chad is on the pummelhorse which is an elastic band that hits you in the undercarriage , chelsea was there with a leg wax remover , then we had cody from code 4 which is our compliance officer with hand sanitizer. So Blaine pummelhorses chad , chelsea leg waxes him and then cody sprays him with the antiseptic (michael: in his eyes… Gen Notes i mean hes probably kidding but idk it seems possible) … chads on the pummelhorse weeping and Blaines ALREADY spinning the wheel. Michael: its funny , theres so much stuff that happened and not just the segments i was there for , but a simple delight getting chad to eat that whole pickle … he was just saying “i cant do it ill throw up” and i just kept repeating “youu can dooooo iit...”... gave me some enjoyment since i was there basically to get slapped around , but in between i made chad eat a pickle Jack: so jeremy you have a fave moment? I know you were there for the solo stream section - oh i forgot about DJ JAAWNK how could i that was a blast Jeremy: yeah i was listening to most of the solo streamer section , i know Kdin had a thing where she gathered a bunch of people to do among us and it was fun…. For a certain donation amount they would just launch john mace into space , theyd just call a meeting and get him… Matt joined me playing spyro and i had the Gold Chonky spyro mods on , and if people donated enough wed spin a wheel that me or him would have to do.. We had to spin it like 15 times , and alot of them were “have to hold the controller upsidedown” which is a monstrosity… and twice it was me put a blindfold on and matt would have to direct me through the level. I panicked A LOT cuz you could HEAR the enemies shooting at and coming at you   but i didn't know where … it was like a live Matt and Jeremy do something - your welcome sarah! (Michael: you did do something… Spearow… Spearowmint gum)  so first were doing SPiderman Miles Morales PS4 edition cuz i don't have a PS5! Everyones talking about how they're sold out so the most ive done was when i was shopping for ovens i was like “lemme peruse the playstation aisle” didn't see one and went guess im not getting one… Jack: are they even selling them in person or is it just online… Michael: i know game stop is selling them , they're sold out but i know they were selling them.... Think most stores waiting for black friday to get them in store… i want one but im not going to a store on black friday , ill play fall guys if i want to get trampled Jack: oh yeah someone mentioned the ChungeScwa heist is coming we reached that goal Michael: fiona said i could be there, i asked can i help and she said something like “plz help , cuz otherwise it wont happen.” ive also offered doing a 50 turn mario party even though it wasn't a goal cuz we didn't even do last years so now wed owe 2 for 2021 assuming we can make that happen. Jack: cant you do a 100 turn mario party is that a thing? Michael: no 50 is the most , ive contemplated maybe we combine them into one game and scores carry over but it might be upsetting if im ahead by 9 stars after 50 turns and then it just becomes a 4 hour victory lap so its probably better to do 2 of them… we were about to do one in april we were planning on shooting it in april but then SOMETHING came up idk what it was … it just kept coming up for 7 months… Jeremy: and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming… oh if were going to show my PS4 screen lemme show how much a  loser i am…. Jack: you got a platinum in bug snax?!?!? Jeremy: yuuuppppp!!!

#gen notes #for later #text #backed up #chit chat #AH #achievement hunter #jeremy dooley #ah jeremy #index #my post #november 2020 #idk what else to tag #keep reading #well would if could #chitchat

[ithappensoffstage]

Look, I'm a simple person--I see Alexsandr Kallus, I think, "he needs to be fucked really well."

I rewatched Rebels recently and decided since I write fanfic now--and spicy fanfic at that--I needed some spicy Rebels fanfic in my life.

~fic linked, or read it below~

Yavin IV was not a cold moon by any standards; certainly not by Zeb’s, whose mind strayed to Bahryn any moment someone--usually Ezra--complained about the jungle at night. Zeb welcomed that cool mist of the morning, the welcome reprieve to some of the strangling humidity. Occasionally before longer missions, Zeb would return to the Ghost just to reacclimate to its crisp, metallic air. Even though he spent more time in space than on the ground, Yavin had worked its way into his lungs.

Zeb thought of Kallus, of his smile every time the Ghost touched down on the landing pad, and rubbed his chest. Maybe it wasn’t Yavin after all.

Shaking himself, Zeb boarded the Ghost, dropped a small crate of provisions in the cargo bay, and made his way to his room. He hadn’t been on the Ghost in almost a week. Ezra, of course, had used that as an opportunity to take over their quarters almost entirely.  New posters lined the walls, droid parts and trophies form Imperials littered the floor, and crumpled clothes covered Zeb’s bunk. Zeb just sighed and pushed everything into an unsightly pile in the corner for Ezra to deal with later.

He was admiring a new poster Sabine had completed for the Alliance when he heard his door open. His ears flicked toward the sound, but he didn’t turn around.

“I had a feeling I would find you here.”

Warmth flowed through Zeb, reaching even his fingertips. He stretched his hand and inhaled evenly before facing the entrance.

Kallus stood in the doorway, arms tucked behind the small of his back and blocking some of the light Zeb had been letting into the room. His shadow wavered when he leaned against the doorframe.

“How did you even get in here? There’s no way Hera gave you the access codes.” Zeb almost smacked himself in the forehead after speaking. Instead, he half-shrugged, looked down, and waved his hand through the air aimlessly, continuing, “Not that I’m not happy to--well, it’s fine that you’re here. Uh. Good to see you.”

Kallus ignored Zeb’s fumbling and answered, voice even, “You left the cargo bay open.”

Zeb wanted to argue he had been too distracted by Kallus’ smile to lock up properly, but then Kallus smiled in real time, and Zeb found himself at a loss for words. He eyes traced Kallus’ outline. His Alliance uniform was less imposing, less sharp than his Imperial clothes, but he still cut an impressive figure. Leaning the way he was in the door, someone could almost mistake Kallus for a civilian if they didn’t know him. But Zeb knew him--saw the straight line of his shoulders, the strong set of his jaw, the way he favored his left leg to avoid putting weight on his injured knee.

“I have something for you.” Whatever it was glowed a muted yellow between his hands.

Crossing the room to reach Kallus, Zeb tried to ignore the tightness in his chest as the object became clearer. The meteorite was no longer warm, but it cast a soft light still, enough to illuminate the space between Zeb and Kallus.

“You kept it.”

“Of course.” Kallus said it like it was the simplest thing in the galaxy.

Zeb scratched the back of his neck, looking down. “Heh. Right.” A moment passed before he realized he was clutching the meteorite to his chest. He wasn’t even sure when he’d taken it. He uncurled his fingers and chuckled nervously as he held it back out to Kallus.

Kallus shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “No, no.” He covered Zeb’s hand--surely just to push the rock back to him, Zeb thought. “I’m trusting you to bring it back in one piece.” With a smirk, he added, “If you can manage.”

Zeb clicked his tongue. “I’m not sure you appreciate how hard it is to completely divert from every plan we’ve ever come up with each time we get a mission. Top military analysts can’t even predict our outcomes.” His shoulders bounced as he tried to hold back his laughter.

Kallus shook his head, mouth half-open, tongue sticking between his teeth. “Truly, I don’t know how you do it.”

Zeb felt Kallus’ breath on his neck. Even though he had actually held Kallus in his arms on Bahryn, Zeb felt this was the closest they had ever been.

“Kallus--”

Kallus made a noise in the back of his throat. “Alex, please, or--”

“Alexsandr. I know.” All at once Zeb felt a giddy lightness in his chest as well as a weight low in his stomach, a contradiction so absurd he wanted to laugh. Instead, he used his free hand to reach for Kallus--Alex’s--face. Zeb took Alex’s chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Are you going to kiss me, Garazeb Orrelios?” Alex’s lips were parted; he inhaled deeply through his mouth.

“I’m thinkin’ about it,” Zeb said quietly.

Alex rolled his eyes and started to reply, but he never got a chance; Zeb kissed him, gently, but without trepidation. The sound Alex made was soft, tucked somewhere between a laugh and a sigh of relief, and he turned his head to the side, kissing Zeb with equal confidence. It wasn’t a particularly long kiss, and when Zeb pulled away, he kept his eyes closed just to make the moment last longer. He dropped his hands to his side. Alex placed the meteorite gently on a shelf. He touched Zeb’s face.

Zeb opened his eyes as he turned his face into Alex’s palm. A jolt ricocheted through his chest as Alex’s gaze met, and held, his. Alex moved his thumb across Zeb’s lips. “I think,” he murmured, “if you had kissed me on Bahryn, that I would have gone on the Ghost with you.”

“And to think I spent all that time saving your life instead.”

“I seem to recall that I was the one who saved your life.”

“Shut up,” Zeb growled fondly before kissing Alex again. This time, he did his best to leave Alex breathless, wrapping him in a tight embrace and kissing him like he intended to consume him. He bit his lips and soothed the spots with his tongue, tasting salt and fresh Meiloorun.

Alex fumbled blindly for the door controls--almost destroying the locking mechanism as he punched it closed--before returning Zeb’s passion in kind, his leg slotting between Zeb’s thighs and his fingers scrabbling to undo the zipper on Zeb’s combat suit. His body thrummed with desire; Zeb could feel it, they were pressed so close. Ears pressed flat and brow furrowed, Zeb kissed Alex harder, tacitly asking for him to be even closer.

Zeb’s shoulders hit the side of the top bunk before he even realized they had moved. He grunted, and Alex pulled away.

Nervous energy burned in Zeb’s chest. In some ways he was still waiting for Alex to walk away, and to take with him a part of Zeb that Zeb never expected to recover.

“I’m not going anywhere, Zeb,” Alex said softly. “So stop looking at me like that.”

Zeb huffed a laugh. “How d’you want me to look at you, then?” He smoothed his hands over Alex’s chest and bit his lip.

“Like you want me.”

“That,” Zeb promised, eyes half-lidded and voice low while he trailed his fingers along Kallus’ stomach, “I can do.”

Zeb dragged Alex into his bed. Alex had unzipped Zeb’s suit, but hadn’t gotten much further with it--which Zeb accepted full responsibility for. Zeb snorted when they both went for the neck of the suit. With his back against the mattress and Alex straddling him, Zeb was more exposed than he had ever been. His hand covering Alex’s, Zeb pulled his suit down to his hips. He bared his neck to Alex. Alex kissed his throat gently, trailing his tongue along his pulsepoint before nipping at Zeb’s jaw. Zeb shivered.

Alex flattened his hands against Zeb’s shoulders and then drew them down his chest, pausing sometimes to trace scars or muscles that caught his attention. When his hands reached Zeb’s hips, he kept his exploration above the suit, and pressed down leisurely on Zeb’s erection. Zeb grunted.

Tucking his knees to his chest, Zeb took matters into his own hands and pushed the suit the rest of the way off, even kicking it into Alex’s face for good measure. Alex pursed his lips. Zeb shrugged. “You were taking too long.”

Zeb was getting harder with each passing second. And Alex was still fully clothed.

Zeb reached for Alex’s jacket, but Alex leaned back and took it off himself, slowly, grinding his hips down against Zeb while he did so. Zeb made a half-strangled noise as his cock rubbed against the material on the inside of Alex’s thigh. He hooked his fingers under Alex’s waistband. “If you don’t take those off soon, I’m going to rip them off of you.”

“Though I would not mind that,” Alex conceded, “I unfortunately need them intact.” He shoved Zeb’s hands deeper, until Zeb was palming his cock. Alex hummed appreciatively and leaned into the touch. Zeb inhaled sharply.

Alex used Zeb’s shoulders as an anchor as Zeb pulled the last layers separating them off of Alex’s body, taking his time to slide his hands along his waist, his hips, the curve of his ass. The sounds Alex made when Zeb touched him were mesmerizing, and left Zeb lightheaded as he considered ways to elicit more of them. Their cocks slid together between them, Zeb fully hard and Alex well on his way, and they rutted haphazardly against each other, desperate for the feeling, leaning into the mounting heat and pressure.

Zeb lifted himself onto his elbow so he could kiss Alex again. It was messy--spit-slick, teeth and tongues clashing, panted breaths passing between mouths--and matched their clumsy thrusting. The urgency with which they wanted one another was more intoxicating than spicebrew.

Abruptly, Zeb found himself pressed flat to the mattress again. Alex climbed further up his body; and, all at once, Zeb understood his intentions. His pulse jumped like a rapid-fire turret.

“I want--”

Zeb’s mouth went dry. “I know.”

Alex dug into his jacket pocket before finally throwing it fully off the bunk. Zeb couldn’t see what he was holding, but then something slick and warm was dripping over his cock, and Alex took him in hand, and Zeb wanted to fall into that heat and never reemerge. His toes curled as Alex’s hand sped;  Zeb reached for Alex’s legs, pulling him into position and swallowing around a groan. His hands holding Alex’s straining thighs, Zeb gripped hard and spread Alex’s legs wide. He watched in awe, blood hot as the deserts of Tatooine, as his cock pressed into Alex. Alex hissed.

“Not all at once,” he breathed. He steadied himself with a hand on Zeb’s stomach, and Zeb kept his hands beneath Alex’s thighs, holding him in place.

“Can’t handle me, Captain?” Zeb purred, just to get a rise out of Alex. Alex scoffed, but the sound became a moan as Zeb rolled his hips, working Alex open some more.

When he could speak again, Alex groaned, “You are insufferable.” As payback for Zeb’s comment, Alex bore down on what length of Zeb’s cock he’d been able to take so far. Zeb inhaled like he’d been punched in the gut. He wasn’t even half in and was already overwhelmed. Alex was tight and knew how to move; Zeb was already ruined.

“I’m not in a hurry,” Zeb murmured, giving Alex’s thighs a gentle, reassuring squeeze. He blushed before continuing, “I just want to enjoy you.” Zeb felt like a fool as soon as he’d said it, and looked pointedly at the wall.

Alex tapped Zeb’s abdomen to bring his gaze back to him. “I have been… thinking of this for some time,” he confessed, causing Zeb’s eyebrows to raise in surprise. “And I certainly anticipated this being a… a notably large undertaking.” He emphasized his point by squeezing his thighs around Zeb, and Zeb would have laughed if he wasn’t so focused on not coming. As it was, he dug his fingernails into Alex’s skin, every muscle in his body alternating between tensing and shaking. “My point is --I would like to enjoy you, as well.”

Alex stretched and yielded noisily, offering steady noises of encouragement or warning. More than once, Zeb found himself biting back a whimper; the gradual shift of his cock into Alex’s tight, wet body had him edging dangerously close to climax. Both of them were breathing heavily by the time Zeb’s cock was entirely buried inside of Alex. Zeb had to cover his face in his hands, too overwhelmed to think of any other course of action, as Alex slowly began riding him, testing a pace, and finding a rhythm.

Zeb was almost immobile, content just watching the blush high on Alex’s cheeks, and the strands of hair falling into his face, and the sweat slicking his neck and chest.

“The goal is to move ,” Alex reminded Zeb--but the force of the comment was lost as Zeb growled, the sound emerging from low in his chest, and used both of his hands to grip Alex’s ass and hold him steady. Zeb raised himself to as much of a sitting position as the bunk allowed, pulling Alex with him.

Alex wrapped his arms around Zeb’s neck, and Zeb leaned in to bite at his ear and jaw. “Fuck me like you mean it,” he begged. Alex heaved a breathless sigh and reached for Zeb’s shoulders. Zeb thrust up into him fervidly, squeezing in time with each movement. Alex writhed on top of Zeb, jaw going slack. He let loose a litany of curses, some in languages Zeb couldn’t even identify, before releasing a shaky, “ Oh .”

Then, smiling wickedly, Alex tensed around Zeb, rolled his hips, and doubled his efforts, sliding nearly all the way off of Zeb before taking him completely back in. Zeb gripped the edge of the bunk above him and tried not to scream. But he let out a cry as he came, and grew only louder still as Alex continued to ride him through the orgasm.

Alex’s hands left Zeb’s shoulders to scratch at his back, digging in for purchase wherever he could. He pressed his temple to Zeb’s; gasping open-mouthed, Alex tried to kiss Zeb but could barely maintain it. When Alex began moaning quickly, repeatedly, in-between thrusts, Zeb knew he was nearing his end, too.

Zeb barely had to wrap his hand around Alex’s cock before Alex was coming, burying his head against Zeb’s chest as waves of pleasure enveloped him. Zeb felt each one in his own body.

“Come here,” Zeb urged. He turned them so he could press Alex into the mattress--pulling out of him as he did so--and kissed him hard. Alex returned it eagerly.

When they broke apart, Zeb chuckled.

“What?” Alex pushed Zeb’s shoulder good-naturedly.

"I was just thinking, if you had told me you could do that back on Bahryn, I would have joined the Empire on the spot."

Alex let out a quick bark of laughter that slowly became a fit, which Zeb swiftly joined. They continued laughing as they curled into one another, Alex's head tucked neatly against Zeb's chest and under his chin.

They stayed like that in silence for a while, simply breathing each other in. Eventually, Alex retrieved a towel for the both of them, and then a blanket.

Zeb opened his arms as Alex climbed back into the bunk. He closed them around Alex’s body and pressed his own chest to Alex’s back, humming contentedly.  “You’ll stay?”

Alex snuggled closer to Zeb. “Of course. The whole night, if you’ll have me.”

“I think I just did.”

Alex snorted and pressed his lips together in a bemused smirk. “Be quiet, and let me sleep.”

Zeb conceded happily. His body ached pleasantly, heavy and loose and warm. Alex’s steady breathing was white noise to Zeb, drowning out the Ghost’s groaning and the Rebel ships docking and departing. One persistent beep, however, kept cutting through the peace, and Zeb’s ears flicked toward it even though his focus was elsewhere.

“You know, you do actually have to get some sleep, since you have a mission tomorrow.” Alex’s voice was muffled by Zeb’s fur.

“It’s just the ship.”

“Mm.” Alex turned in Zeb’s arms until his face was pressed against Zeb’s collar. Zeb grinned, almost giddy with delight to hold him so close.

The beep grew louder, more persistent. Zeb growled.

Alex yawned and pressed a single, soothing kiss to Zeb’s neck. “Just ignore it. It’s louder sleeping on base.”

“I’m trying, it’s just--well, it sounds an awful lot like--” Zeb scrambled out of his bunk so suddenly he nearly sent Alex crashing to the floor.

Alex recovered with all the dignity Zeb expected of him; sliding his shoulders up the side of the bunk, he crossed his arms, rolled his neck, and exhaled tiredly through his nose. His eyes were still closed as he scraped his hands down his face. “What. Could possibly --”

Zeb sent him a pointed glare. “It’s Chopper.”

Zeb’s clothes were much easier to gather than Alex’s, and he was dressed and jamming the door before Alex was even half-covered. It was a pity to lose that part of the view, though. Zeb was about to say as much when he heard from the hall, “--can’t really blame her, Chopp, since your diagnostics last time were--ow!”

“Oh, good, Ezra as well,” came Alex’s voice from behind Zeb.

Another voice, long-suffering but fond, sounded from outside Zeb’s dor. “Behave, you two!”

Zeb sighed. “And Hera.”

“ Karabast. ”

Eyes wide, Zeb turned, his stomach lurching. Alex was muttering to himself as he pulled his jacket on, completely oblivious to Zeb’s attention and, Zeb realized, what he had said. When he finished zipping up his jacket, Alex threw his hands in the air and looked around.

“What next?”

Chopper slammed into the door. He let out a series of frustrated beeps and whirrs when the door remained closed.

Ezra knocked impatiently. “Zeb? Are you in there? Open the door, sleemo; I need something for training.”

“I’m trying to sleep!”

“Why,” Ezra slammed the exterior control pad, “did you,” and again, “jam the door?”

“So little womprats like you would leave me alone!”

“Chopper’s going to open the door anyway so you might as well get up and help us.”

“Chopper, I will rip the dome off your rusty body and use it for target practice!”

Alex came to Zeb’s side. He slid his hand across Zeb’s shoulder, leaning into his space, and whispered, “They are your family, Zeb.”

“And?” Zeb puffed out his cheeks.

“ And .” Alex kissed the corner of Zeb’s mouth. “That means the less secrets, the better. If that is what you want."

Zeb threaded his fingers in Alex’s hair, marveling at the way the light danced in his eyes. Their mouths met in a lingering kiss, one Zeb felt even after it was over and he was opening the door to his quarters.

Zeb expected Ezra and Chopper at his door, Hera in the cockpit. But when he and Alex faced the hall, all three of them were there--along with Sabine and Kanan. If not for Alex’s hand on his back, Zeb would have turned right back around.

The silence stretched until Kanan requested someone tell him what was going on. Sabine smiled wryly as Hera explained, “Well, Zeb and Captain Kallus stopped dancing around each other.”

“Nobody was dancing.” Zeb sneered, all too aware of the blush high on his cheeks.

Kanan smiled. “Good news. Captain Kallus, expect everyone to give you some variation of a ‘don’t break his heart’ speech when we get back. Everyone, let’s just focus on getting the Ghost ready for now.”

“You would think for a crew so clearly prepared, less missions would go awry.” Alex crossed his arms, a smirk playing on his lips.

“You’d think for a crew with regular habits, they wouldn’t break them the one time it’s inconvenient,” Zeb corrected.

Laughing, Hera pointed in the general direction of the cargo hold. “The plan changed. We were asked to offload these supplies tonight--another crew got back early. They’re taking them for us so we don’t have to make that extra stop on the way out. I thought that was the best thing to happen tonight, but I’m really, really living for the look on your face right now.”

Zeb frowned. “Thanks, Hera.” He looked at Alex, who was having an odd staring match with Ezra, and said, “We’ll be on our way.”

“You’re really going to get speeches, you know,” Zeb warned when they were out of earshot. Alex laughed brightly.

“I would not expect anything less.”

Zeb took the ladder down first and watched--stomach flipping pleasantly--as Alex descended. Their arms brushed as Zeb walked Alex back out to the base, Sabine and Ezra following with the cargo they were offloading. They stopped when they reached the edge of the ramp.

“Don’t,” Zeb grumbled, but Alex was already craning his neck to kiss Zeb’s cheek. Sabine wolf-whistled from the cargo access bay while Ezra feigned like he was vomiting.

“Hasn’t he smelled you?” Ezra called.

“Shut up!” Zeb glared.

“Among other things,” Alex added simultaneously, just for Zeb’s ears.

Not to be outdone, Zeb chuckled and added, “We’ll have to try some more of those things when I get back.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Despite Ezra’s loud and continuous complaints that he needed Zeb’s help with the cargo, Zeb watched Alex until he was inside the base. By then, Ezra had come to wait by his side.

“You seem happy.” It was a remark devoid of sarcasm or humor; it was simply a fact, one that Ezra wanted to make clear he understood.

Zeb unfolded his arms and looked down at Ezra.

“I am.”

#kalluzeb #star wars #rebels #my fic #text

[a-coda]

Time to Go

"When in doubt, use brute force" -- Ken Thompson

Rich Hickey recently published "A History of Clojure". I'd blogged about it before:

"Getting some Clojure"

"The Road to Clojure"

"Bravely Truthy"

"Too Lazy"

I was inspired by this history lesson to get back to the last of those: my XML munging project.

The current Python version of this process takes a few liberties in order to be fast. It doesn't fully parse the XML and instead crudely slices it up as text blocks. It can do this because it knows the way the files are printed and only needs to transform the data, not interpret it.

I wondered if I could get similar performance in Clojure by processing the XML more naturally. Gettting started was easy. Slurping an XML file into memory is embarressingly easy in Clojure. The parser turns the XML into standard Clojure collections.

Unfortunately, it then became frustrating. I was trying to stream the transformation via the lazy data structures, but I ended up spending way too much time looking at runtime errors in obscure backtraces. Clojure benefits, but also suffers, from being a hosted language. The downside is the errors are in terms of the supporting Java innards. (To be fair, users of Java's own functional streaming support can also suffer from this.)

I suppose I should have used the REPL more for experimenting with smaller units, but the performance also sucked and caused the GC to thrash (until I increased the JVM size a lot). In despair at my clumsy attempts to stream the data elegantly I switched to an asynchronous style with channels.

Unfortunately, I hit other problems with that approach. At one point the compiler and runtime made opposing complaints about the type of a data structure. Eventually I figured out I was using "take" instead of "async/take". After running into another 'impossible' problem with the channel approach I gave up.

The Clojure history paper said Clojure's async support was inspired by the Go programming language. So, I reasoned, why not program the goddam thing in Go instead?! I crammed a tutorial and started converting the not-working-very-well Clojure application.

The Go tutorial is nice. It has some interactive parts where you get to test your understanding. It doesn't cover everything but was enough for my needs.

While writing the Go version I actually spent most of the time Googling for the right XML library. Many Go XML processors assume you want to unmarshal the XML into application-specific structs, but I just wanted to splurp the XML into something vanilla. In the end I found "etree" which mimics Python's Element Tree.

First I coded it in a very linear way, and then again with channels (producer-consumer). The performance was much better than my (virtually non-terminating) Clojure app and only slightly slower than the Python original. This is good considering I'm really parsing the XML into a DOM in the Go version and the Python version is mostly only chopping up strings. The Python code is also invoking C library code for the heavy lifting while the Go code is all in Go. (You can wrap Go around C for XML if you want).

Overall the development experience with Go was very different from working with Clojure:

old fashioned imperative programming

compile-time type checking

fast compile times and much faster execution (on this code)

good level of compilation and runtime error reporting

Go itself felt like a halfway house between Java and C. It has a GC but also has pointers (watch out for copying). It doesn't have classes or inheritance but it does have interfaces and a form of dynamic dispatch. It doesn't have resizable vectors but does have a smart "append" function on slices which does the same job. Go does not have exceptions (and so no try-blocks) but does have a mechanism for accumulating deferred cleanup work in a function. It doesn't have a "public" declaration but does have capital letters!

Go has been described, in a postive way, as a "boring language". I certainly found it simple to learn. I think it might be easy to return to and use in a casual way. Perhaps further evidence (if it were needed) that "worse is better".

If you want other recent musings there are some here:

"Early Impressions of Go from a Rust Programmer"

"Why Go and not Rust?"

In the end:

"Sometimes, the elegant implementation is just a function. Not a method. Not a class. Not a framework. Just a function." -- John Carmack

[daughterofluthien]

Fictober - Day 27

#fictober19 #star wars ot #star wars rebels #hera syndulla #leia organa #i'm really sorry guys i know i haven't posted for awhile #but staying up late working on these has gotten to me a bit and also I'm frantically finishing a Rey cosplay for halloween lol #but anywho have this #(also yes I worked on this for more than one day don't @ me) #also also there should be more hera and leia bonding stories in the world because they have a lot in common and also similar dispositions #my fave angry star wars girls #my fic

[wizardoftrash]

The Good in Transfer Limitations

This is a spoiler-free discussion on the recent announcement that Pokemon Sword and Shield will not be compatible with pokemon that are not on the Galar Dex. You will be limited to the Pokemon that can be found in the region.

If you don’t want to hear why a decision like this might be good, here’s your stop.

Ok, I really do get that this is a controversial and unpopular decision. Some folks have favorite pokemon that they might not get to use in the new game. Some folks wanted to bring their national dex collection forward into the latest gen. I’m sure there’s also a score of competitive players who are going to be out  quite a bit of time and energy with more of a clean-slate on the new gen.

But I wanted to start by saying, that this could have been much, much worse.

They’ve announced that there will be a new cloud-based way to store and transfer pokemon in the form of Pokemon Home, which will likely take more advantage of the new console’s features and capabilities. We barely know anything about this new service, but from what we do know, it’ll replace Pokemon Box and allow transfer between Pokemon Go, Let’s Go, and Sword and Shield.

There was no grantee that we would have a way to get pokemon from box, or sun and moon, onto any of the switch gen games. There was a very real chance that Let’s Go and Sword and Shield would have been a clean slate. I had said as much earlier on when players were still speculating about the switch gen games. Sure, it would have been a reasonable expectation that we would be able to transfer forward, but with a new gen, they had an opportunity to really overhaul the balance and gameplay for the series. The sheer quantity of older gen pokemon would have represented a significant obstacle in that kind of overhaul, which is why we have not seen that kind of overhaul since pokemon abilities made their splash.

1: Innovation has a price

... and that cost is time. Game design and development is an extremely time-intensive process. What might seem like a small change on the use-side can represent a huge cost to the developer both in time, and in storage space on the cartridge. Players might not fully grasp exactly how different sword and shield is from the previous games, and without ruining it for players that are trying to go in blind, this is the most different main-line series game in the entire genre, and I’m including Let’s Go when I say that. Up until this point, the series has been criticized for how unwilling they were to take risks and really change up how the game is played. Restricting the pool of pokemon that can be used is one of the things that makes that possible. There are at least 2 major changes in this gen that I can think of that would have had a multiplicative impact on development time based on the number of pokemon it would have to work for. Its not that the game would have taken too long to make, but that it would have been either too costly to make or impossible to make considering what would have been gained by opening it up to the whole national dex. Odds are good that there were other prohibitive factors at work here.

2: What we gain outweighs what we lose

Not everybody is thrilled with *every* new mechanic in sword and shield. The changes to multiplayer on the other hand are fairly unanimously welcomed. This is a total game-changer for the series, and its something that I had been hoping for from a Pokemon game for AGES. To support my claim, lets take a hard look at what we lost, because not being able to carry over certain pokemon affect a few ways the game is played.

Can’t re-live your favorite older teams

Harder to build restrictive mono-type style teams

Can’t use Sword/Shield as your comprehensive collection, or use it to trade for older missing pieces

No national-dex style post game

Narrower competitive play selection

Now to be fair, we don’t really know what Pokemon Home is going to have in terms of features. At the very least, expect to be able to use Pokemon Home as a comprehensive place for your collection to live including the newest gens. For all we know, there might even be ways to trade or even Battle using Pokemon Home (perhapse pokemon stadium style). Until then, the biggest things we “lose” are the various alternate ways to play through the story, and the variety in competitive play, which I’ll address in later points.

For most of us though, those are a tiny fraction of what the pokemon journey is. The vast majority of the pokemon playerbase gets nowhere near the full national dex, and has little to no personal interest in tournament play. If you want to re-live a classic team from a classic game, you could still go back and re-play the game it originated from, or take another stab at Sun and Moon with it. If you were really hoping to run a sheep-only team by running Mareep in with your Sword and Shield squad however, hopefully the new pokemon and featues are enough to make it worth while.

3: Fewer Useless Pokemon

This is a tough one to explain. No pokemon is truly useless, but there are loads and loads of pokemon that get swept under the rug simply because its a smidge worse than some other pokemon by-comparison. I’ve had some experience messing around in competitive play, and spent ages breeding and EV training pokemon for my friends to take to tournaments in older gens (looking at you sapphire). It always broke my heart when a neat idea I had for a fringe include didn’t work out because it was juuust under-statted enough not to be viable. Some of the time the culprit is just the meta (prevalance of fairy moves made Dark types SUUUUCK) but the vast majority of the time, its because its outclassed by a pokemon in another gen. This meant that only a tiny slice of the entire pokemon family would be anywhere decent in multiplayer but sometimes also in your pokemon journey. Why would you use Bronzong on your team when you’ve got a perfectly good Beldum in your box? *laaaame*

By restricting the pool down to just the pokemon you can encounter in the region, it creates opportunities for older pokemon that they chose to include that might have been overlooked in their own gen, and helps prevent new and interesting pokemon for being ditched for similar but slightly more optimal older pokemon that you’ve already used a dozen times and makes for a more boring experience.

4: Games are Art

“But how I play should be my choice!!!” - common expression

While that’s partially true, you should get to play how you want to play within a game environment, that doesn’t give you the right to *dictate* the environment itself. Games are as much an art form as they are a product or entertainment. Art isn't’ exclusively driven by supply and demand. An artist has intent, wants the audience to have specific experiences with their work, and has every right to shape their art in whatever way they think gets that experience across. Pokemon Sword and Shield isn’t a commission piece coded to your personal specifications, its work intended for a broad audience, and its really up to them to choose the conditions under which you interact with the work. *how* you interact with it within those conditions is still up to you, so if you want to force yourself to use only pokemon that appear in Galar and in previous gens, knock yourself out.

5: You don’t Know what you Want

or rather, you probably don’t totally know *exactly* what you want. You might be PISSED that you don’t get to roll your favorite team or pokemon forward, because you *think* that’ll be more fun. You might be furious that you wont be able to show off 100% of your new shinies in the multiplayer mode, because you *think* that’s what you’ll be doing. You might be devastated that your old competitive teams might be worthless, because you *thought* they would be all-stars in the new meta.

But you actually have no idea. The game isn’t anywhere close to out, most of the info is still a secret, and none of us have gotten our hands on it (except at e3, for 1 encounter basically). Pokemon let’s go was initially received extremely poorly, but that was before the game actually came out. Most players were pleasantly surprised, and the mechanics that people *thought* they were going to hate were well received when people actually gave it a fair shake.

Odds are good that some of what you hate about the new game you’ll learn to appreciate. You might be disappointing with the lack of transfer ability now, but it won’t be that big of a deal when the game actually comes out. There will be plenty to do in the game exactly how it comes packaged, so while you might have thought you wanted to play it a certain way, that could and likely will change when you actually play for real.

6: Competitive Renaissance

Not sure about you, but I’m thrilled that we are getting something like a clean slate for competitive play. I loved the early stages of Sun and Moon’s VGC environment. The meta was shifting, lots of fresh pokemon were getting tested and experimented with, and it was a blast to play without dealing with the same old strategies and pokemon over and over again. Yes, eventually it got stale and the meta settled, but that’s just the nature of the top level of competitive environments.

Sword and Shield has a chance to be pretty different in terms of competition. Without talking about the newest features of the game, I can say with some certainty that there is a ton of room for a diverse and interesting meta. Beyond that, there are loads of changes yet to be announced that could impact this. For example...

A full-on re-balance of all gallar region pokemon? We don’t know all of the reasons that they restricted transfers into the game to just galar region. One of those reasons could be that the ones that are making the cut are being re-balanced for viability across the board. Stats, moves, you name it, its possibly up for grabs.

A simplification of EV’s and IV’s? We don’t have a clear grasp yet on how EV’s and IV’s play into this gen yet, if at all. Previous games have added sub-games and mini games to make this a bit simpler, but what if it could just be... simpler! Narrowing the selection would make the work of converting stats from previous games less of a chore. What if it could just be... simpler?

Conclusion

Bottom line is that this is what we are in for with our next game. They won’t delay the release just to satisfy people’s whims for a national dex: the players that want this the most will still buy the game. Collectors and completionists will need it to keep their collection complete, and the most passionate pokemon fans aren’t just going to sit this one out. Have a bit of faith in game freak here, we’ve all got our favorites, but each game is genuinely a good experience.

See you at release!

#pokemon #sword and shield #nintendo #nintendo e3 #pokemon box

[sarcasticgaypotato]

(( Whoops, I did it again. For @bondibee‘s ‘LaaC’ verse, based on some musings we’ve had. )) Chell was dead. Death happened to all humans eventually, so it really ought not to have been so surprising. Chell lived longer than most, much longer in fact. At least a solid ten years more than GLaDOS’s initial estimate. Of course, that was only because of GLaDOS. As Chell started to get older and her body started to underperform, GLaDOS was there to step in.  If Aperture could make a gun that shot holes in reality, they could certainly improve upon pre-existing technology meant to support human life. So, as year after year went by, and bit after bit of Chell’s natural body failed her, GLaDOS hooked her up to some new machine that would kick the the can down the road a little bit further, at least until the next upgrade. But eventually, it got to a point where Chell started turning her head away, scowling at the prospect of whatever new machine GLaDOS had designed for her. It was almost as if she didn’t want to live another year. Another five. Another ten. Yes, she was old and weak and bedridden, yes she could hardly sit up, and lived off an IV drip, but she was alive. Chell was barely a shadow of the athletic, quick-thinking, tenacious, test-solving woman that she had once been, but she was still Chell.  GLaDOS had kept her brain deterioration to a shocking minimum, and so Chell was very much still in there- if she had been reduced to some wheezing old hag who couldn’t remember her own name, GLaDOS might’ve given up sooner and let her go- but sometimes she wondered if that made things harder. Chell knew who she was, where she was, and what she had been able to do. To then, with full understanding and memory, watch herself lose those capabilities, one by one, had been painful. The powerful test subject that GLaDOS had come to love now... seemed nothing but tired.

And so, when she was on her deathbed, Chell had actually smiled. Her lips pulled gently upwards as she rested a frail hand on GLaDOS’s balled up fist. As if that was supposed to comfort her.  GLaDOS had been fighting tooth and nail to save her this time, but she hadn’t been prepared, her latest prototype wasn’t ready and- “GLaDOS…?” GLaDOS looked up, blinking tears- she wasn’t crying. Was she? Her cheeks were wet but she wasn’t crying- out of her eyes, and trying to focus her gaze on the woman in front of her. “I…” Chell’s voice came out like a croak, sickly and weak, and far from the attractively low growl that it had been in her prime. GLaDOS couldn’t help but wonder if something was making it painful for her to talk, hence the way she paused in-between each word.  Frantically, the AI tried and determine what it was.  Maybe she could get her some water, some medicine, something to make it easier for her to say what it was that she needed to say. But the rest of Chell’s sentence didn’t come. GLaDOS waited, and she was met with silence. “Speak.” ... “ ...I said SPEAK damn you, now is not the time to play mute again!” GLaDOS rose her voice, trying to ignore the way that her pitch dangerously wavered and threatened to crack.  A flare of anger rose in her chest that burned white hot, as she stared down at Chell, who lay there, ignoring her. Ignoring her with glassy eyes and a chest that no longer moved up and down with raspy breaths, there was nothing but silence. Silence that was only broken by the cold, hard sound of a flatline. GLaDOS’s anger was replaced with freezing cold dread.  A pit of ice that formed in her stomach, and slowly spread outwards. Chell was dead. And GLaDOS wasn’t ready. Chell had been on death’s door for far too long now, but GLaDOS had stubbornly shook her head and refused to believe it. Chell couldn’t die yet. She still had another year in her. Another month. Another day. GLaDOS just needed one more day. One more hour. Five more minutes. She needed Chell, she couldn’t lose her. She couldn’t say goodbye yet. And days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months, and months turned into years. Soon, it had been a decade since Chell died, and GLaDOS still could not bring herself to let it go. Chell’s body was perfectly preserved, held in stasis exactly the way it had been merely minutes after death. It was tucked away in a secure room, then locked up. GLaDOS hadn’t looked at the body since the day Chell died.  Seeing it would only make her death more real, so she tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Chell was dead, and GLaDOS couldn’t handle that.  So... maybe, she didn’t have to. It had been a decade, and GLaDOS finally started to move forward. Not move on, but not stay stagnant. That wasn’t very good science. She threw herself into her work instead, completing a project that she had been forbidden to do.   Chell had never wanted this, she had said as much, no matter how much GLaDOS had tried to convince her otherwise. But that was alright.  GLaDOS could let herself be selfish, that was not the worst thing she had ever been called.  Chell could hate for a hundred years if she wanted, and that would be fine. Time would soon be irrelevant to the both of them. All GLaDOS needed was to be able to hold Chell in her arms again. Warm and alive, and in her prime.  And GLaDOS had the technology to one day do so. GLaDOS could grow a body. If she could make dozens of human forms for herself, she could make a perfect copy of someone else’s. She had Chell’s body, she could take whatever samples she needed, and go from there. She had Chell’s brain scanned, she need only turn memories and feelings into lines of code.  If GLaDOS herself could exist like this, so too could Chell. And so she worked, tirelessly, to perfect the process that the scientists before her had created.  They had found out how to create robotic life with a human base, but that wasn’t what GLaDOS needed.  She was made from the building blocks of Caroline, but she was still someone new. GLaDOS didn’t want to make someone new. She just wanted Chell back. But she would be careful. She would be cautious, she would check every line of code, every second of the process. She would find where the scientists who created her went wrong, and she would fix their mistakes.  She would do this right. Unfortunately, defying death was not so simple.  And for as much as GLaDOS could, and would oppose the natural order of things- her existence alone spat on the process of organic life- that did not mean that the universe would not fight back. When she first brought Chell online, she had been eagerly waiting at the not-so-human’s side.  Chell’s new body was as young and powerful as it had been when they first met, lively looking and healthy. Chell’s eyes, when they opened for the first time, shimmered with life, and seemed leagues away from the exhausted dullness they had held the last time GLaDOS saw her. But nothing was ever as perfect as it seemed. This was not the Chell that GLaDOS had spent years with, fallen in love with. This Chell did not look at her with fondness or affection.  It first met her gaze with guarded confusion. Perhaps… she did not recognize GLaDOS’s human form.  She had made this one to look exactly the same as it had been when she first inhabited it- it was only fair, she would not put herself in an old, weaker body if Chell got to be youthful- but it was possible that Chell would’ve expected to see the same form that she had looked at before she died. So GLaDOS spoke, reminded her who she was.  The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. And Chell changed. It did not take long for GLaDOS to realize her mistake. As Chell grew more and more defensive, looked around the room for means of escape or attack, GLaDOS knew that she had brought Chell back, but she had brought a version of her back that was robbed of half her life. A Chell that looked and thought the same as she had all those years ago. Stuck with only GLaDOS’s murder attempt as the most recent memory in her head. It was too cruel, GLaDOS decided, to see her like this.  She did not wait so long to be met with someone who looked at her with anger, fear, and confusion. She could not stand to be with a Chell who did not remember how tenderly she had held GLaDOS, kissed her, loved her. GLaDOS did the only thing there was to do. This was only the first test of many, she had an eternity to figure the process out to bring Chell back.  She had everything she needed to tweak the the system and start again as many times as she needed.  This was a minor setback, nothing to worry about. Yet…GLaDOS couldn’t quite stop the tears that fell from her eyes. Tears that cut paths through her makeup, and washed away the splatter of blood that had sprayed against her skin. She was only getting rid of a failed experiment. But Chell was dead. Again.

#chelldos #love as a construct #portal 2 #glados #chell #can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs #huh GLaDOS?

[la-knight]

BOOKS I (RE)READ IN 2018: FURTHERMORE BY TAHEREH MAFI

"Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, 12, rates three things most important: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. Father disappeared from Ferenwood with only a ruler, almost three years ago. But she will have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is Oliver whose own magic is based in lies and deceit. Alice must first find herself—and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss." "Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was everything. Color, you see, was the universal sign of magic." "Love, it turned out, could both hurt and heal." "Narrow-mindedness will only get you as far as Nowhere, and once you're there, you're lost forever.” "Alice was an odd girl, even for Ferenwood, where the sun occasionally rained and the colors were brighter than usual and magic was as common as a frowning parent." "Making magic is far more interesting than making sense." So I actually read this book a few months ago and then recently reread it via audio so I could remember all the details for this review. I was first introduced to Tahereh Mafi’s work through her book Shatter Me, her debut novel. Ironically, it wasn’t through any of the ways I normally hear about books - Booktube, Goodreads, my best friend, Booklr - but from my husband’s aunt. She runs - or used to run, not sure if she’s still doing it - a book review blog. And she posted a review of Shatter Me and I was like, “What a weird, interesting writing style, lemme check this out.” At this point the entire Shatter Me Trilogy plus novellas had been published and I devoured all of them (still need to review those, too). So when I heard Tahereh Mafi was writing a middle grade book, I got super excited! Especially because this was during a time when I was too stressed out to read any YA, since most of the YA I like involves having to save the world and all the stress that entails. I need to lay out some trigger warnings real quick: the main character, Alice? Her mom is incredibly abusive, both emotionally and physically. It’s treated as not such a big deal in the book, which is honestly the story’s only real flaw, but it’s bad. It took me seven tries and resorting to an audiobook (and even with a fantastic narrator, that short audiobook took me almost a month to get through) because the abuse was so bad. So:

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE OF A CHILD BY THEIR PARENT

Let’s get started, yo! First of all, the setting. OMG. See, I love tthis thing called Victorian fairy tales, which is something you can find in books like Mary Poppins - these super fantastical bits of whimsy that just warm your heart and make you grin because they’re so creative and fun. In the Mary Poppins books, you can jump into chalk drawings and go to a circus amidst the stars and make friends with a woman who sells living candy-cane horses. In Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series, there are shadow balls and talking phonographs. And in Furthermore, there’s light raining down from the sky in literal drops, sticks of magic you use like money, and forests full of invisible berries. The way the world is put together and described, so full of color and imagination, is awesome and beautiful and I could picture it perfectly. It reminded me in all the best ways of books like The Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorites). But I wouldn’t want to live there, because Ferenwood is full of colorism and ick. Alice, the female lead, is an albino in a world where color is important and the darker you are, the more magical you’re considered to be. So Alice gets treated like garbage. 

Also I think Alice may be autistic, but I don’t know if she’s deliberately coded autistic or if Tahereh Mafi did it by accident while trying to make Alice eccentric, but she comes across as autistic. I’ve actually begun to pay more attention to that sort of the thing in recent years, being autistic myself, and I see it a lot - authors giving their characters autistic characteristics, often without meaning to. I just touch on it here because Alice is already treated badly for being albino, but she’s also considered a freak because of the way she behaves - like an autistic preteen. And I wonder if Tahereh Mafi did that on purpose as a sort of commentary or not, because while Alice is treated badly by the people of Ferenwood for her behavior, the Narrator (who is an actual character in the story; love when that happens) always sides with Alice in this regard. The storyline is sweet and I love it. Alice tries to compete in the magical testing all the preteens do on their twelfth birthday, and so she dances. And her dancing is magical but it’s not Magical, you know? So she fails the test. Well, turns out a boy who passed the test the year before, Oliver (the brat), needs Alice’s help fulfilling a quest - rescuing Alice’s missing dad. So they go on a quest together, although Alice hates Oliver (and rightly so, he’s rude). They go to a dozen different and cool places, all of which are dangerous and all of which are different. I wish we could’ve spent more time in those places but I understand why we didn’t. The only annoying thing is there’s an origami fox on the cover but it only pops up in one of the worlds for like two pages and then it’s gone and I thought we could spend more time both in that world and with that creature since it ended up on the cover. But alas, not. I understand why - middle grade is often cursed to be short, especially if it’s the author’s first MG novel ever. Once you get big and bad like Rick Riordan you can start tossing out gihugic tomes like Son of Neptune or Blood of Olympus on the regular. Oliver’s reason for needing Alice was one I didn’t see coming, nor was her magical talent - a talent they hint at throughout the book but never explain until near the end, at the perfect moment. I thought it was an interesting commentary on how young girls perceive themselves, that Alice hates this marvelous, amazing talent she has of bringing color into the world from nothing...because she can’t use it to change how she looks. Society has trained her already, by the age of twelve, to discount something incredible about herself because she can’t use it to make herself into what society wants her to be. That’s pretty impressive for a book this short. I loved some of the more deliberate messages in the work - the thing I mentioned about society’s pressures on young girls, and also that it’s okay to tell boys to screw off if they’re mean to you, and to have hope and to look for second chances (Alice thinks she only has one chance to pass the test and believes her life is over when she fails, only to find out she can try again the next year). I love all of that, and the lyrical and whimsical quality of the prose, and the world building is so creative and also makes me a bit hungry (people eat magic in this book, among other things; I wonder what it tastes like). Now...let’s talk about the abuse. That’s my biggest issue with the book. Alice’s mother is a total bitch. And not in a cool, kickass way like the lady in the show Empire. She’s vicious, she’s cruel, and she’s abusive. Alice knows - and the Narrator confirms - that she turned bad when her husband went missing, and apparently the worry for him and the strain of raising four kids on her own is making her hard and sad, but I don’t give a shit. I was hoping Tahereh Mafi would’ve gone all Hansel and Gretel on this lady and when Alice comes home with her dad, the wife’s dead or something. She beats Alice (at one point she beat Alice for chasing a boy out of the place where she was sleeping, even though he kept staring at her in her sleeping clothes, because apparently the boy - Oliver - had the right to break into their barn at 3AM and ogle Alice???), she verbally abuses Alice, she sends her to bed regularly without dinner, is constantly criticizing, won’t hug her or kiss her, and - this one really got me, for some reason - forces her to do illegal things. Those invisible berries I mentioned? Alice can find them and bring back whole baskets because of her magical gift, and so her mom sends her out to pick them all the time. If she brings home enough, her mom smiles. If she doesn’t, her mom yells and calls her names and sometimes beats her. Guess what? Picking those berries is illegal. We don’t find this out until much later in the book, but it is. The thing I didn’t like about the berries is that Oliver, who’s thirteen, is less concerned about Alice’s mother beating her for not picking enough contraband berries and instead focuses on how her ability to find the berries in the first place means Alice has really impressive magic. NOBODY seems to care how much Alice is being abused, not even the Narrator. The Narrator sympathizes with Alice’s hurt feelings and despair over her missing Father, but it’s never objectively stated that her mom is abusing her AND SHE IS. Yeah, her mom is sooo glad to have her back after Alice almost dies on her trip with Oliver, but so what? My roommate’s mom is so abusive that my roommate’s clergy leaders, doctors, and psychological therapist all said my roommate needed to cut ties with said mom, even though my roommate’s mom has also exhibited the same kind of “oh baby I’m so sorry, I love you so much” bullshit. That’s what abusers do. So I hate Alice’s mom. She literally makes her daughter feel like if she doesn’t risk her life numerous times AND bring her father back, there is no chance her mother will ever love her. And if she pulls that stuff off (which she does), then MAYBE her mother will love her. Nuh-uh. Nope. Hate that bitch. Other than that, I really loved this book. The characters felt real (Alice is me, but without my anger), Even the ones I didn’t like were still REAL, and well-drawn. The world building and word choice is fantastic. Basically, if you can get past the evil mom, read this book. World Building: 1 star Realism: 1 star Word Choice: 1 star Plot: 1 star Characterization: 1 star - ¼ star because Oliver Newbanks is an obnoxious little creep - 1 star because the mom is AN ABUSIVE EVIL BITCH - ¼ star because NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT THAT +½ star because Alice is amazing and has a genius brain and I love her Total score: 4/5 stars Would I Buy It: Yes! I own it and loved it enough I got the sequel for Christmas (in...2017...I've been sitting on this review for months...)! Would I Recommend: yes, but with trigger warnings. Again, highly abusive evil bitch mom who somehow doesn’t die.

#books of 2018 #book review #aesthetic #Furthermore #Tahereh Mafi

[ciathyzareposts]

Dark Stone Ritual: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

The Game Master gives us some useless experience points at the end of Dark Stone Ritual.

           Magic Tower I: Dark Stone Ritual

Germany

Motelsoft (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for Atari ST

Date Started: 9 April 2019

Date Finished: 12 May 2019

Total Hours: 29 Difficulty: Easy (2/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

             Summary:

The prolific but amateurish Motelsoft levels up in this entry, with mechanics heavily inspired by Might and Magic III and IV. A pre-defined party (you had to pay extra for a character editor) explores a large world in a somewhat linear manner, piecing together clues, solving puzzles, and ultimately defeating the tyrant Xoon. Top-down outdoor exploration contrasts with first-person town and dungeon exploration. Unfortunately, the combats are too easy, the puzzles too simple, and the story too threadbare to make effective use of the character classes, skills system, variety of spells, and variety of equipment that the game largely copies from Might and Magic. A better game engine than a game.

****

Dark Stone Ritual ended up being larger and longer than I expected. When you begin playing, the game does such a good job confining the world that it seems smaller than it is. Hemmed in by impassable terrain, water, and walls, the party must slowly acquire passwords and items necessary to make incremental progress around the world’s major areas. Eventually, the party finds some teleporters that make navigation easier, as does the “Townportal” and “Caveportal” spells.           

Unlocking the “Swimming” ability was the last obstacle to open-world exploration.

           As you slowly acquire the skills necessary to navigate in forests and swamps, climb mountains, and swim, the full world opens up to you, and you can explore every square for the items and clues necessary to reach the end of the game.            

A bit of the final game map.

         Ritual is far more linear than I expected at the beginning. Most of what I thought were “side-quests” turned out to be steps along the main quest, all funneling into one or two key items or pieces of information. For example, to win the game you must first find the Dark Stone, which is in the dungeon of Lunos. To pass a certain point in Lunos, at least one of your party members must be a member of the Dark Stone Sect, which you can join by visiting a hut on section of land to the southwest. To get to this area, you have to use a teleporter in a section of land to the southeast, which in turn requires using a teleporter in a small compound on the starting continent. To enter this compound, you have to find a password (RUHE) by interpreting four messages in the dungeon Zappos. To enter the dungeon Zappos, you need an invitation, and that’s as far as I can trace it back because I forgot where I got the invitation. But you get the idea.             

Combat remained easy throughout the game, which discouraged spell experimentation (rarely did spells do more damage than a physical attack) and trivialized all the time I spent analyzing inventory. Only thrice did I have to fine-tune my attacks in “strategic” combat, and neither gave me any trouble once I made that decision.            

“Strategic” combat lets you position characters and aim your attacks at a particular foe.

          The nature of enemy encounters was odd throughout. You find enemies at fixed locations on the overland map and very rarely at fixed locations in dungeons. There is also a fixed number of enemies wandering each town map. Some dungeons have no combats, and those that do never have more than one or two. This paucity of combat makes the dungeons feel rather empty, and the very light navigation puzzles (a few switches, hidden doors, teleporters, and pits that you have to cast “Jump” to get over) don’t do much to fill them.           

Exploring a dungeon. An encounter lies ahead.

        Nothing really evolves in the way of a “story,” just a succession of NPCs and enemies that you meet and defeat on the way to the final confrontation with Xoon. Because of these weaknesses, I ended up liking the game less towards the end than towards the beginning. In my first entry on Ritual, I was clearly impressed by the mechanics. I still am, to some degree, but the developers made a somewhat boring, basic game with those mechanics. A lot of it feels unfinished–in particular, more than half the skills are unused, and the dungeons and towns are filled with locked doors that can never be unlocked. Nonetheless, it is an improvement from Sandor and Seven Horror’s, and thus bodes well for the many Motelsoft titles we will encounter in the future.

A few things that I otherwise didn’t get a chance to cover along the way:              

An arena appears in two locations in the overworld. When you enter, you can tell the game how many enemies you want to face and at what levels. I didn’t really experiment with it, but it’s an alternate source of experience if you somehow need it. The concept is of course lifted from Might and Magic.

In what I think is an original element, a few dungeon entrances (including the last) required entering a pattern of green, red, and blue gems on some kind of plate. You have to find the correct patterns in other places.

             Arranging stones on the door of the final dungeon.

         There was one door with a combination lock for which I never found the combination. Fortunately, reader Buck reached the same point before me and figured out the answer from the game’s code.

While I’m on unsolvable puzzles, at least three times I was asked to choose from among five symbols. Choosing the wrong one killed the selected character. A tavern tale had warned me that choosing the right symbol would kill the selected character, too, if it was a man. I had to figure out the answers from save-scumming. I have no idea where I was supposed to get them.

           Do those symbols mean something?

         There’s a useful “return to entrance” button while in dungeons. If your selected character has a high enough “Pathfinding” skill, you’ll return swiftly to the exit stairs. I wish every game had this.

There are fountains all over the world map that raise attributes, hit points, resistances, and spell points, but no combat is tough enough to require them. The final island has about six.

              Okay, I guess they’re not so much “fountains” as “offers of wine.” But they’re direct analogues to Might and Magic’s fountains.

                The game culminated on a small compound on a northern island. A guardian demanded a password. What she really wanted was a pass phrase, compiled from five words given by residents in little huts in exchange for certain rare stones. The stones, in turn, came from other residents to whom I brought “stone plates” found scattered about the island. The full phrase, for posterity’s sake, is BRENUM BRANUM KANUM LUZE LEI. (Thanks again to Buck for helping with this.)           

Does that look like a “word” to you?

          This allowed me access to Xoon’s dungeon, which is called “Dark Stone Verlies.” I verified later that the “Caveportal” spell will take you there if you just know the name, meaning that a second-time player could skip a lot of stuff and just warp to the endgame.           

The game reminds me that I must emerge with Xoon’s head.

           The dungeon is the only one that has multiple levels (three) and the only one that doesn’t remember your progress if you leave and return. There was only one combat, early in the first level, with a guardian of Xoon’s named Morok (I’m sure that name was in previous Motelsoft titles). It was one of the battles that I had to fight in “strategic” mode to win. In “strategic” mode, you can position your characters around individual enemies and target them, ensuring that you can reduce their numbers faster. (“Quick” combat targets enemies randomly.) You also get more attacks per round. Between the advantages of strategic combat and the “Full Heal” spell that I’d recently acquired, the battle was quite easy.             

“Quick” combat was the wrong choice for this final battle.

         The dungeon’s second level is one of the largest in the game, full of secret doors, teleporters, traps, and a bunch of pits to jump. Eventually, you find your way to the third level and the mystifyingly anti-climactic encounter with Xoon, if it is Xoon. I’m not sure I haven’t mistranslated or misunderstood something. The climax begins with a black-faced man, flanked by two women, saying: “Ihr wollt meinen kopf, ich weiss. Nun gut wenn ihr unbedingt haben müsst. Ha ha ha. Dann sollt ihr Xoons kopf auch bekommen.”           

Nice shoepolish, Jolson.

               The scene then dissolves away, the party is teleported back near to the entrance, and in their inventory is Xoon’s head.

I translate his text as, “You want my head, I know. Well, if you have to have it, you should also get Xoon’s head,” suggesting that he himself is not Xoon. It’s worth noting that the game uses the same portrait for the master of the Dark Stone sect earlier in the game (although it also re-uses a lot of portraits). I wondered if joining the Dark Stone sect and finding the Dark Stone itself are optional, and that doing so leads to an “easy” ending where the master kills Xoon for you. This is partly suggested by an item in the game’s hint file that says, “If you have the Dark Stone, the rest is a children’s game!” I tested this theory by loading a saved game from before I had the Dark Stone and using “Caveportal” to go directly to the dungeon. (I had to buff with fountains to win the first-level battle.) But no, the same thing happens even if you don’t have the Dark Stone.          

A previous appearance by the same character.

            Whatever the case, the game ends when you return Xoon’s head to the Game Master back in the dungeon Glorys. The Game master expresses astonishment that you managed to kill Xoon, who was supposed to have nine lives, and then suggests you save your game for Part 2.

In a GIMLET, the game earns:

1 point for the game world. Ritual comes with no backstory, and while the continent and its features are visually interesting, there’s nothing in the way of lore or culture to be found here.

3 points for character creation and development. Without the separate character editor, the game unfortunately has no creation process. But the characters are quite well detailed in attributes and skills, and development is satisfying enough for a few levels, until the game becomes too easy. In the end, the character sheet is more complex than necessary given the limited game content.

           My final paladin character.

          1 point for NPC interaction. The little dudes in huts are more like “encounters” or “quests” than NPCs.

3 points for encounter and foes. Monsters are probably the weakest part of the game. Most of them are unnamed. They’re distinguished only icon and number of hit points. Because they lack significant special attacks or defenses, there’s little need to explore the game’s variety of spells. Non-combat encounters are a bit more interesting, with a couple of challenging puzzles, although nothing that approaches Dungeon Master in complexity. I liked the option to search for enemies in already-cleared towns and caves.

3 points for magic and combat. I give some credit for the two combat modes, and “strategic” combat offers some real positioning tactics. I didn’t bother to explore more than half a dozen magic spells, particularly since there are no mass-damage spells and the individual-damage spells do less damage than a physical attack.

             Buying spells in the last town. I never found out what half of these spells do and never cast half of the rest.

             5 points for equipment. Ritual adopted Might and Magic‘s complexity with inventory, where items can have multiple bonuses and features and there are usable items to sub for many spells. Again, though, combat was too easy to bother exploring most of these features, and I largely decided which weapons and armor to keep based on cost.

            This helm effectively increases my level by 1.

           3 points for economy. There are lots of things to buy–training, skill acquisition and building, weapons and armor, and healing among them. It’s just too easy to acquire enough money for the entire game within the first few hours.

            The game provides absurd amounts of gold at regular intervals.

           3 points for quests. The game has a main quest, if a little light, and a few side quests that impart extra valuables and skills.

            The party solves a side quest to return a ring, only to find that the quest giver was divorced in the meantime.

           2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are fine, but there is no sound at all. The mouse part of the interface works well, but unfortunately the mouse part is the only part, which I don’t find remotely forgivable.

3 points for gameplay. It has a little nonlinearity at the beginning, and the total number of hours was good for its content. Unfortunately, it was too easy and has no replayability.

          That gives us a final score of 27. Motelsoft is making better, more complex games in 1992, and letting itself be influenced by the right titles from bigger developers, but it still lacks a certain sense of balance and polish. Despite the promised sequel, it doesn’t look like there was ever a Magic Tower II. We’ll see them again this year with Arcana unless I happen to pick up Projekt Terra (1991) or Sandor II (1991) on my “old” list first.

Let’s see if I can finish up Star Control II this week, too. If not, the next 1992 game is a Macintosh title called Darkwood. Looking at a couple of screenshots, I’m pretty sure I’ve played this before. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it won’t be more than a single entry.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/dark-stone-ritual-won-with-summary-and-rating/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

[apotatomashedbybts]

I'll Be Your Knight

[Genre: fluff, slight angst

Pairing: Jimin×reader , Taegi

Soulmate!Taehyung, best friend!Yoongi

Word Count: 2.3k+]

[Summary: When Y/n met Jimin she knew that it was a love at first sight. But she didn't expect the consequences that came with loving him. After their unwilling separation will Y/n be able to do what it takes to get him back?

A story of love, loss, fight, dreams, and friendship...]

Chapter IV: The New Friend Circle

"Let's go! He rescued us!" I smiled at him and lead the way, hoping my walk didn't seem weird.

"Sir, may I come in?" Jimin asked knocking on the door.

"Oh! Yes yes! You too Ms. Y/l/n." Mr. Moon said putting his phone down.

"I can see why you two are late. I do have a reputation for walking fast, a bad reputation I would rather say." He said laughing heartily. "Please sit down."

"Thank you sir." we both said at the same time.

"You two are new in the campus and I can already say that you are smarter than most of the students. I am really happy to teach students like you." Mr. Moon took his seat. 

"I should come straight to the point. The last question in today's test was really difficult I guess but y/n, I hope you won't mind me calling you by your first name," he looked at me through his glasses, I nodded an unclear 'no' and he continued," I must say I'm impressed that you attempted to crack the codes and succeeded halfway! Don't think much about that question. That's not included in your syllabus. In fact that needs a much higher education and intelligence. I am of course not doubting your intelligence but education and knowledge IS an important factor. Other students except you didn't even try it. You'll eventually learn it later. Don't think about it too much. And I'd really appreciate it if you keep this conversation within these walls. Now, if you'll excuse us." saying all these things he smiled at me.

There was something in that look that made me gulp. I nodded and rose from my seat to leave.

While turning away my eyes met Jimin's for a fraction of second and there was something in those that told me that he didn't want me to leave. I looked back at Mr. Moon and what I got was only a stern look. I had no other choice but to leave.

I decided to wait outside the door. I wanted to know so badly what they were talking about but I can't do anything but wait. I leaned my back on the wall, looked at my feet and waited.

"It's been ten minutes! Should I text Tae to leave without me? He must be hungry." I thought tapping my feet. Just then my stomach made a grumbling sound, "Who am I kidding? I am hungry too!"

                    I was just going to message Tae when the door opened and Jimin walked out, worry plastered on his face.

        "Should I ask him what happened inside? Mr. Moon must have forbidden him to open his mouth too. Otherwise why would he tell me to leave?" I wondered.

          His worried expression got me worried.

             "Are you okay? You don't look good! I-I mean you are handsome of course, like really! Don't get me wrong. But you seem like you are worried about something." I stuttered disquietingly if that's even possible.

My words made him laugh. "Yeah I am okay." He tried to assure me and then rubbed his philtrum.

"I am just not used to this kind of situation, that's all." he said smiling.

                 It felt like he was trying to hide it so I didn't push him further, after all I was not in that position yet.

                  "You must be hungry. Wanna grab some food with us? Tae is waiting for me outside. And it's not that bad to make new friends once in awhile! Don't you think?" I tried to lighten the atmosphere.

                      "You have a pretty smile!" Jimin said all of a sudden.

                        "T-Thanks. Your smile is pretty too!" I said, trying to hide my blush.

         Oh! How much I wanted to say that he had the prettiest smile that I had ever seen! How much I wanted to tell him that his smile makes my heart soft and race at the same time!

             I knew that the whole time walking by his side made my blush meter score high but I didn't know how to control it. I walked slowly purposely so that I could get more time to spend with him.

             "Do you usually walk so slow?" He asked me. Busted!

              "N-no, not at all! Hunger makes me slow, he he!" I said and wondered, "Did my laugh sound creepy? I hope he doesn't think me a weirdo!"

              "Oh! Is that so? Here eat this!" He took out a chocolate bar after rummaging through his bag for awhile.

             After taking it I looked at it for some moment contemplating whether I should eat it or not. "Am I so in love that I want to keep it untouched and treasured?" I wondered.

                  "What are you thinking? Don't you like chocolates?" He asked with an upset frown on his face.

                 "Ah! No no! I love chocolates! It's nothing! Don't worry about it!" I tried to convince him.

                    "You will definitely like it! It's my favourite!"

                      "Really? Then it'll be my favourite too!" I said opening the wrapper with utmost care.

                       "Let's share it! I am not the only one hungry here!" I said offering him the half of the chocolate. He took it gladly and that made me happy. I kept the wrapper in my pocket secretly.

*Beep*

"Oh! Shit! It's already so late! Let's go quickly!" saying this I increased my pace.

        Reaching the gate I looked around for Tae. I saw him at the sidewalk glaring at me. Beside him was this really handsome boy who waved at me enthusiastically as if he had known me for a really long time.

          I waved at him awkwardly and crossed the road with Jimin following shortly after me.

           "I am really sorry that I am so late! Please forgive me! I am y/n. You must be Hobi!"

             "Yay! You know meee!" Hobi said excitedly and pulled me into a bear hug.

                I understood why had Tae always called him a "sunshine". I pulled out from his hug and smiled, "Tae talks about you a lot!"

                "Oh! Really?" He looked at Tae, clearly surprised.

                  "No not really! She talks nonsense all the time." Tae slapped my arm and glared once again.

                  I ignored that and pointed to Jimin, "This is Park Jimin, my new friend!" then pointing to Tae I said, "and this is Kim Taehyung, unfortunately my best friend!"

                  "No, it'll actually be 'my unfortunate best friend'!" Tae remarked.

                 Hearing this both Jimin and Hobi burst out laughing. I looked at Jimin and felt this sudden pang in my heart. How could a human be so angelic?

             To bring me back to reality Tae pinched me real hard. I screamed "ow" and glared at him. Then I realized why he did it. "I should practice blocking! I am such an idiot!" I thought.

               "Let's celebrate today for the formation of our new group and also for you two's first day at SNU! I hope you don't have any problems Jimin." Tae said looking at Jimin and then smiling he said, "Let's invite Yoongi hyung too!"

  We all gathered at aunt's restaurant and toasted to our new group, "Cheers to us!"

         We talked a lot. We got to know about each other, well basically it was Jimin knowing about us and we all knowing about Jimin.

          I already knew about Hobi. During our frequent video calls Tae used to mention him often. So I knew about him though I saw him first today.

          Though Hobi was majoring in dance, he and Tae got to know each other because they had Geography lecture together. Due to both of their friendly nature, they became close friends and thus we got acquainted with each other.

            I was quite enthralled by what Jimin said about himself. Due to his dad's job he had to move a lot since childhood. The castle was their ancestral property. They never got to stay or come here because of this job thing. But recently after his mom's death in an accident, his dad decided to come back to Korea. He told us that his dad had told him not to make close friends because eventually they have to move out. And too much closeness is emotionally hazardous. He had gone through so much and that made me really sad. But after that Jimin said something that changed my mood. He said, "But you guys are different. You make me want to stay together and make memories. And also my dad said he is going to quit the current job and find a new one so that we can settle here. He misses his home. He spent his entire childhood in the castle after all." I felt relief wash over me after hearing this.

          "So you are the unofficial prince!" Yoongs said.

            "Ha ha! Yeah! You can say so!" Jimin replied shyly.

While chatting we didn't even realise when it got so late. Hobi was almost on the verge of passing out due to drinking. He didn't even for once mention that he was a light head. Tae and I didn't like drinking that much so we were fine. Jimin and Yoongs were quite a drinker but they were somewhat sober.

                              Except Hobi, we all lived in the same area so we decided to drop him home first. Tae offered to drive, his saying went like this, "I don't trust drunk guys! They are injurious to health!"

                                So we dropped off Hobi, then Jimin and lastly Yoongs. As it was Yoongs' car, we decided to walk home.

           We were walking quietly because our neighborhood, the very peaceful one, usually fell asleep at around midnight.

              "Told you he is a nice guy!" Tae started the conversation.

    "And how did you know that even without speaking to him once?" I snickered.

       "It's a special hidden talent. Dumb people like you won't understand!" He made a wise face and then laughed out loud.

          "Oh! Is that so?" I smirked. "You are so gonna regret it."

           Getting what I was about to do Tae started running and I ran behind to catch him.

             "You can never catch me!!!" Tae shouted. "Loooser!"

                "Wait till I get you!" I shouted back.

         I almost got him when a grandpa from the balcony of a house shouted annoyingly, "Ah! Nowadays the kids are so noisy. You can't even sleep peacefully. It's already 1 am! Ah! Kids these days have no consideration at all for us!"

           We stopped on our tracks, bowed and apologized sincerely. After the grandpa went inside muttering to himself, I smacked Tae and said, "This is all your fault!"

            "Yeah! Sorry sorry! Please don't beat me! I don't want to die!" Tae said making a crying face. 

           "Then compensate for your mistake. Give me a piggyback ride to my house! Only then I will consider forgiving you!" I said pretending to think.

          "Say no more my queen! Get on your royal carriage!" Tae bent down so that I could hop on.

           After getting on his back I said teasingly, "I hope the carriage won't break down halfway!"

            "This is the strongest carriage that you'll ever get."

             "I know." And I leaned closer, "Thanks Tae."

After walking for about five minutes like that we reached my house. Before leaving Tae said, "Listen to Taylor Swift's Enchanted. That'll be the perfect song for you today, well tonight! Bye!" And like that he took off! He didn't have to go far alone. His house was just after two houses, so it was fine.

               I sneaked into my house and tiptoed to my bedroom. I changed into my pajamas and got under my blanket, plugging in the earphones. Enchanted by Taylor Swift he said.

                After listening to the song I understood why he recommended this song. It matched with my feelings so much and before I even realised tears brimmed at the corner of my eyes.

       I rubbed my eyes and thought, "I should sleep early. I have to get up really early tomorrow. And beat the crap out of that boy!" And I fell asleep with a faint smile on my face.

  "Hey dumbhead! Are you ready yet or not? Lecture is not going to wait for you!" Tae shouted from the road towards my window.

     "You have a phone, right? Why do you have to shout?" I shouted back.

          As soon as I came out of my house Tae hooked his hands with mine and started walking to the opposite direction towards the park.

          "Yah! Where are you going? Weren't you late for your lecture?" I confusingly asked Tae.

            "My lecture starts at 10:30 am and now it's only 9:00 am." Tae giggled innocently.

              "Then why did you ask me to get ready so quickly? My lecture is at 11:00 am!" I said pouting and slapped Tae's shoulder.

                "Ouch! Stop stop! Let me finish first!"

                  "You better have a good reason!" I huffed and glared at him hard.

"Well, Jimin is joining us to college. So we are going to pick him up. He may already be on his way here. So, we are meeting him in a few minutes. We can go together, eat together after reaching and I don't know.." Tae shrugged.

           My expression softened while he talked. Noticing the change in my expression he said, "If you don't want to then I can tell Jimin. No problem at all." And sighed dramatically looking at the trees.

            I pulled his bag and began walking, "That'd be bad you know! He must be waiting for us!"

              Tae smiled knowingly and said, "Yes, you are right!"

Other chapters

A/n: Here goes the fourth chapter! I hope you like it too. Thank you so much for reading! 💜💜💜

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